Hedge Sculpture

[We-are-all-mad-here]

So I’m a better artist than I am a gardener! I posted here last spring about fluffing up my scraggly Eugenia Uniflora that I wanted to eventually grow into hedge art. I followed the excellent advice I received, fertilizing every three months and I planted a Yew to work I to my sculpture eventually to see if it grows faster, and I am using rooting compound to try to propagate more Eugenia to expand my sculpture.

However, my base Eugenia is still scraggly. It got to the height I wanted and I am in the process of building my wire form around it, but wow is the actual bush list in there!

It’s supposed to be a hippocampus. I’m still working on it. I need to plant my rooted cuttings at intervals to be like a humped sea monster tail and the tiny Yew will be the tail fin.

My question is: what would happen if I planted cuttings right up in the base of the main shrub? Would they graft together and be as one plusher tree or suffer from competition? Is there any special technique to planting extra trees and getting them to grow together? Not even sure the term for that to google it.

Anything else I can do to fluff up this Eugenia?

Thanks to anyone willing to give their time to help and advise!

 

[Marck]

Plant shapes are moldable up to a point, but their branching arrangement and root space must be considered. I would not plant more cutting immediately at the base of the present shrub.

The armature for this topiary is so all-encompassing. I think it will trap the plants branches underneath the wire. You might have to individually tease out each branch, and even then they may become damaged by the wire everywhere. Most topiary frames are more open, and some artists don't use them at all, or perhaps only a single pieces of wire here and there to anchor or train a branch.

I suppose Surinam Cherry (Eugenia uniflora) is a reasonable choice for a topiary, but generally the more fine-leaved the plant, the better.

Of course, another very different way to make this creation would be as a vine topiary. Mattress Vine (Muehlenbeckia complexa) or Creeping fig (Ficus pumila) come to mind as a good choices for a vine topiary. It could even be a hybrid of both shrub and vine with the two plant types giving different textures to different parts of the design.

 

[We-are-all-mad-here]

Plant shapes are moldable up to a point, but their branching arrangement and root space must be considered. I would not plant more cutting immediately at the base of the present shrub.

The armature for this topiary is so all-encompassing. I think it will trap the plants branches underneath the wire. You might have to individually tease out each branch, and even then they may become damaged by the wire everywhere. Most topiary frames are more open, and some artists don't use them at all, or perhaps only a single pieces of wire here and there to anchor or train a branch.

I suppose Surinam Cherry (Eugenia uniflora) is a reasonable choice for a topiary, but generally the more fine-leaved the plant, the better.

Of course, another very different way to make this creation would be as a vine topiary. Mattress Vine (Muehlenbeckia complexa) or Creeping fig (Ficus pumila) come to mind as a good choices for a vine topiary. It could even be a hybrid of both shrub and vine with the two plant types giving different textures to different parts of the design.

Marck, thank you so much for your replay. I really appreciate it. I don't mind threading branches through wire; I crochet, so had plans of using my crochet hooks to thread branches where I want them to go and that seems like simple normal thing to do because of my yarn art background. I went with the wire form because our house is from 1886 and I was thinking that I wanted to create legacy topiary that subsequent owners could easily continue for the next century regardless of artistic skill.

We do have a lot of vines growing around the property; some orange trumpet vines growing on the fences that flower beautifully in summer. It grows along a property line fence with the neighbor in a great pile with some other vines, one with leaves and thorns the other with white flowers, and on a back chain link fence. I cut it back from the house couple times a year. I think that if I tried to combine any of those vines with my existing Eugenia sculpture, it would choke out and probably kill the Eugenia Uniflora. It's an interesting idea; I'll have to consider it. I need to do something for the humps of the hippocampus tail and I was going to plant Eugenia cuttings.

I planted Japanese Boxwood and Eugenia Uniflora at the same time after researching which topiary plants could survive in the heavy shade under my 80-100' liveoak. The Boxwood is about two feet high, so the Eugenia despite larger leaves seems to have been the better choice for my growing conditions and/or skill level combination. Not sure how the vines would do under the tree. Probably okay; they get quite a bit of shade on the fence by the house.

I'll have to decide whether to work in some spreading fins at the bottom with Eugenia cuttings planted at a distance and guided towards the core topiary, or to do the vines.

Thank you again for the great input. You saved me from planting close to the base, which is totally what I was gonna do. Thank you!

 

[Marck]

Good luck with this project. I look forward to seeing it again as it progresses along.

 

[We-are-all-mad-here]

Thank you again. Every time I read over your post, I see even more how solid the advice you gave is. It's a really good big picture viewpoint that covers all angles as well. You must be a true master gardener, and I feel lucky you took the time to help me. I need to read over everything you said a few more times and think super carefully. I really appreciate this. Thank you!