Happy Plants

Topiary is the horticultural art of training landscapes into defined shapes and recognizable figures and most likely developed in the stoic confines of Hellenistic Greece (topia is Greek for ‘places’). From the carefully pruned evergreen plants popularized in the atriums of Ancient Rome, to the weathered pines of Chinese penjing and Japanese bonsai, to today’s limitless mosaicultures, topiary has evolved to serve the maniacal inspirations of its creators. From Louis the XIV to Edward Scissorhands, these artisans have sought to amaze with mazes and unhinge with hedges. Topiary’s provocative blurring of the line between nature and sculpture has often maddened critics. In fact, the earliest known mention of topiary, by Roman Pliny the Younger, was a rebuke of its use in the villas of Rome (Historia Naturalis xii.6). In 18th century England, Alexander Pope ridiculed the mad topiarists with his “verdant sculpture.” The written piece included catalog-type descriptions of the most absurd topiary imaginable: “Adam and Eve in yew,” “The tower of Babel, not yet finished,” and “a quickset hog, shot up into a porcupine.”