Spiral trees lend a touch of formality to your landscape, bringing to mind old English gardens. There are lots of options to decorate your lawn with spiral topiaries to help define areas of your outdoor space or brighten your lawn for the holidays. Some need more work than others, but any kind of spiral tree can enhance your landscaping design.
Potted
Potted spiral trees give you the flexibility to move them in different places in your lawn, although it might take more than 1 person for bigger, heavier pots. Potted topiaries frequently sit in the corners of a terrace to bring life into the area. Placed near a fountain or in the front corners of a garden path, potted trees help define the place as a separate space from the rest of the lawn.
Planted
Planted evergreen trees can make more of a statement in your lawn since they can grow bigger than those constrained in pots. Put these carefully in a permanent site. Choosing dwarf varieties of evergreen trees can make it a lot easier to keep the spiral form.
Holiday
Since the winter holidays roll around, festive decorations create your own backyard wonderland. Wrap existing spiral trees with lights or garland to accent the shape, or bring out artificial potted topiaries developed to appear like spiral evergreen branches. Decorate with colorful ribbon or ornaments to complete the look.
Considerations
Several types of plants work well in a spiral, such as evergreen trees such as Italian cypress (Cupressus sempervirens), shrubs such as boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) or ivy plants such as English ivy (Hedera helix L.) shaped around a spiral form. Living spiral trees expect a maintenance and patience. First, you must await the tree to reach a big enough size to start to shape it, which can take two or more years. When you shape the tree, you must prune it several times a year to keep the shape — that is why shorter trees are easier to maintain. As an alternative, you can place artificial spiral trees throughout your lawn. The upside is there’s not much maintenance required, but the disadvantage is the color fades in the sun. Outside artificial topiaries frequently have to be replaced every other year, based on the amount of sunlight they receive.