Plant sculpture: experts at work

Our boxwood hedge with a section trimmed
On our 10 acres this summer, I'm taking care of all the maintenance myself with one main helper. It's a full-time job, actually. (In the spring we have three helpers because cutting down the ornamental grasses, cleaning-up from the winter, and moving or dividing plants is just too much to do ourselves.)

I have a couple of exceptions to the D-I-Y regime: one is pruning big trees, which a professional tree service does for us, and the other is pruning the boxwood hedge around my four-square garden.

Bob May: pruner extraordinaire
The master at that job is Bob May, a former gardener at Royal Botanical Gardens, who now runs his own business, which he calls the "Plant Sculptor". He's in such demand that although I called him in early June, he and his crew weren't able to get here until yesterday. He's so busy he can't take on any new clients so I'm glad I got in on the ground floor several years ago.

The key to precision is a string line and sharp shears
© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

More pictures: Four-square garden

Here's a photo of my four-square garden taken earlier this month, which shows a panorama of the entire garden just after the boxwoods were freshly clipped.
The background trees are on the neighboring tree farm
This picture makes for quite an interesting contrast to how the boxwoods looked (see picture below) before their first clipping, which took place last summer.

This was a job I didn't dare do myself, but entrusted to Bob May, a former gardener at Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens. Bob calls himself the plant sculptor, and no wonder: what a beautiful precision clipping. The hedge is shaping up amazingly now.