How to make a box ball

in Home : Projects: Greenhouse and house plants

You will need

Rooted box cuttings
Ornamental pot
Hand shears
Loam-based compost

Do it: all year round

Takes just: about an hour

Project categories

Overview

Shaping topiary is a fun and inexpensive way to create year-round interest in the garden. These plant sculptures contrast dramatically with flowers in summer, and bring structure, style and form to winter gardens.

If you haven't tried topiary before, making box balls is a great way to start. Box is the ideal topiary plant, and a simple sphere will allow you to try out the basic techniques and see the results quickly. Simply buy a tray of rooted cuttings and follow our instructions. It will take around two years for your ball shape to fully develop.

Find out how to create more topiary shapes, in Alan Titchmarsh's feature in the November 2011 issue of Gardeners' World Magazine, on sale now. Alan explains how to make a range of shapes, including cones, clouds and birds, and offers advice on the best plants to use for each style.

How to do it

Pot your cuttings up individually into 10cm pots, giving them a light initial trim with scissors so they grow bushy from the base. Stand the pots outdoors or in a cold frame and keep the plants well fed and watered for maximum growth.

After about two months, the new plants should have rooted fully. Move them into a large decorative pot, filled with loam-based compost. Space the plants fairly closely, so they knit together as they grow, and pinch out the shoot tips to promote dense growth.

Water the plants and apply a liquid feed regularly, so they grow steadily without the leaves going brown. Trim little and often through the growing season with scissors or shears - remove just the tips once new growth has added 2-3cm to the outline.

Within two or three years, you should have a decent-sized sphere. It is essential to feed and water the plants regularly once the pot is full of roots. After two years, top-dress the pot every spring or repot into a larger container using loam-based compost, plus some slow-release feed granules to maintain good growth. By then, a twice-yearly trim with shears should be enough to keep the topiary in good shape.

Adam's tip

Hand shears make the best tools, as they provide you with the most control.

Discuss this project

Talkback: How to make a box ball

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shazzza1 13/03/2012 at 17:29

hi how do you get box cuttings i have few box i love them i am a beginer so dont laugh please.

jeffd 13/03/2012 at 22:52

You can take box cuttings in August to September, about 3 to 4 inch stems dipped in some rooting powder or gel if you have any, into gritty compost. by early the next year you should be able to pot them up singly. It takes about two years to get plants the size to plant out .( cut the stems just under a leaf and remove the bottom few leaves or take heel cuttings, I usually do a few of both and just keep them in a unheated greenhouse and most take)

cloud8 14/03/2012 at 06:27

what is a heel cutting please?

Emma Crawforth 14/03/2012 at 10:59

Hello cloud8,

The method for taking heel cuttings is described here. The project is about lavender but the principle is the same. A heel is the base of a stem, where it joins the main stem.

It's worth giving it a try - as jeffd says, it doesn't matter if a few fail.

Emma

gardenersworld.com team

shazzza1 31/03/2012 at 01:06

hi jeffd thanks you, i shall try that