San Juan Capistrano, CA. - Just because your landscaping space is small, that doesn't mean you can't get big impact. Small spaces require extra effort to create a scene of interest and beauty, without leaving visitors feeling either cramped or exposed. Achieve the perfect balance with topiary plants.

Topiaries are plants grown and trained into specific shapes. They provide a clean look that can be festive or formal, depending on the shapes produced. Front entryways, patios, wall space landscaping, smaller yards in condominium and single family dwellings are candidates for topiary plants.

Common topiary shapes include poodles, two and three tiers, free forms, bonsai shape, pom-poms, spirals, patio trees, globes, cones, espaliers, trellis, and even varieties pruned to resemble animals. A host of plant varieties can be trained into topiaries, and different plants lend themselves better into certain shapes.

Flowering varieties are particularly suited to patio tree shapes and trained on espaliers and trellises. Many hedge-type plants can be trained into poodles, globes, free forms and cones. Certain conifers, such as Juniper Blue Point, Juniper Spearmint, and Juniper Burki are perfect as poodles, spirals, and patio trees. Junipers that spread are ideal in free form, pom-poms and bonsai designs.

Vines such as Star Jasmine, Gelsemium, Pandorea, Tecomiajasminoides, and Bougainvilla also train well. Aside from these vines and the Junipers noted, additional varieties that afford themselves to topiary use include:

Ligustrum
Bougainvillea
Pyracantha
Boxwood
Eugenia
Azalea
Hibiscus

Topiaries can be grown in size 5, 7 and 15 containers, even 24-inch box specimens. Espaliers and trellises are normally sold in size 5 and 15 containers, with various size and shape wooden designs to train the plants, most often vines.

These plants are excellent for narrow space landscaping used up against a fence, wall or house. They can also be useful as a barrier for privacy or to create a backdrop of beauty and uniqueness. Poodles, free forms and spirals are perfect when used to highlight an entryway, frame a door, or even as a container plant for a patio or atrium.

Although pruning and maintenance are required to keep topiaries crisp, they are worth the investment. Their size and beauty improves with age, adding value to the spaces they occupy.

Kent Berchiolli is the Sales Manager for Miramar Wholesale Nurseries, which grows more than 125 varieties and sizes of topiaries at each of its three locations in Southern California.