 | crazygreenthumbs January 30 |  When you have too much time on your hands... I would hate the maintenance on these, but they are still pretty cool. All of the formed plant shapes started out tied to structures. Once they reach the desired look they either remove the structure, or if they used wire, sometimes they leave it. But you would always have tons of maintenence with these ideas. Link  If you ever purchased a braided "money tree" (Pachira aquatica, it looks like bamboo but it isn't.) this is the great grandaddy of all braided money trees! I have a small braided set of these I bought over a decade ago. I attempted to continue to braid the stems and I have found that you need a wire structure to continue to braid the stems in the same fashion as they come. And, since I don't like fiddling with plants much, I just did a straight plaiting and put a bamboo support in the pot just to get control of the growth and get it all upright. Link  Somebody had a lot of extra time to mess with this. There are circles, heart shapes and woven branching. It's beautiful but you'd constantly need to prune any new growth on the stems. Link  This seems to be a really popular shape. I also like the zigzag ones off to the right. If you look hard enough you will see the wire support on the interior. Link  There are certain species of plants that do well with braiding. The shape you choose is unlimited. I like the box shape they created. Link  Who has time to stand outside and braid their grass? Apparently this person! The interesting part (at least to me) is that since this is a clumping grass, new growth is going to come out from the exterior of this plant, so the braid will not look good for long. Link  Braiding pampus grass requires gloves! My brother and I frequently missed the driveway, coming down our street on our bikes, and ended up crashing into our pampus grass. Those leaves are like little razors! Link  This just looks painful to me. Cool. But definitely painful. Redirecting plants that have sharp tips looks really unusual, would last for a lot longer than the braided grass, but getting those leaves to fold over just makes me think of being impaled... repeatedly. Link  Constant clipping. I hate my creeping fig. I have to get a ladder and some scissors out every few weeks and trim it. A lot of these structures look incredible, but it's the maintenance that I see. Link  These look a little bit like something from a Dr Seuss book! Boxwood topiaries are an either/or proposition. Either you keep sheared and shaped topiary garden or you grow food or flowers. I guarantee you whoever owns this property does not do the topiaries. This is for an army of gardeners, not a single homeowner. Link  This has to be somewhere like Disneyland. I always enjoy going to theme parks that create topiaries like this. The gardener in me appreciates the work that goes into creating stuff like this. Lots and lots of work! Here's a link to a lady who broke down what she saw at Epcot. link  This is another wire support structure. There's something magical about creating something like this. Link  You don't have to follow any specific shape. I really like that the original shape they created is slowly growing together. It almost looks human. Link  I would never make one of these. Unless I didn't care how it looked on the outside, where all the growth is. Left to its own devices this would look like a giant shrub with a door and a secret space to relax. Any time you see one of these that look like a little building, know that someone is trimming the outside of this to maintain the shape. Link  I love this. I don't know if it's natural or shaped but it is magical. Link  Want something simple? You can start with a single knot. But this tree was shaped into this large knot in expectation of annual ring growth. The trunk will continue to expand and eventually choke itself. Link  Somebody just had fun with this. My mother lives in the mountains in Colorado and she has several "prayer" trees that were started a hundred (or more) years ago. They are bent over and then start growing straight. Usually pointing towards good grazing or water sources. I really enjoy looking at those. You can create a shape in a tree that will be around longer than you will. Link  This is an example of the the unlimited potential of tree shaping. Pick a two or three dimensional shape and add a lot of patience and work, you can have something as intricate as this. Link  I really like this idea. It's simple, you only have one place to join, and it's impressive. Link  Some of these photos are from Gilroy gardens in Gilroy, CA. If you haven't been, you should go! Here's the link to the park.  I imagine this was something found in nature a long time ago and used as a bridge ever since. I don't know how you would train roots. Link  Have unlimited time you want to use for topiary? Yeah. Me neither. But you can't deny how fantastic these look. Link  The secret to shaping. There are no random workers eyeballing these. You need a form and a team of workers to be consistent. Link  I stumbled across this guy probably ten, fifteen, years ago. His method is called pooktree. He has an ebook for sale that teaches you how to shape trees like he does. I remember there's a specific variety of tree he uses and for some reason I'm thinking it was a wild plum. I may still do this, so he's always in the back of my mind when I see tree shaping. If you are interested in learning more this is his site: link | | | |  | You can also reply to this email to leave a comment. | | | | |
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