Topiary Shaping Up in Contemporary Gardens : Gardening: Training and trimming shrubs into ornamental shapes is an old art that is finding new popularity.

Say topiary and these images might pop into mind: lions, tigers, bears and perhaps bunnies lovingly shaped and snipped from the greenery of an English garden. But the world of topiary is much broader.

Quite simply, topiary is the pruning and training of shrubs and trees into ornamental shapes, and those shapes may be as basic as geometric forms or as elaborate as a ship in full sail.

Topiary encompasses small, portable plantings as well as the great, maze-like hedges of estate gardens.

“It’s an old art that’s become popular again,” says Dorothy Bohannon, a topiary devotee and a 11-year volunteer at South Coast Botanic Garden.

On March 4, Bohannon will give Southland gardeners an introduction to the “World of Topiary” through a 2 p.m. lecture and demonstration at the garden.

Bohannon’s interest in topiary is an outgrowth of European trips with her husband. During their travels, she saw the topiary of many European gardens, especially the formal, elaborate gardens still tended along France’s Loire River.

“It’s so prevalent there--it’s in almost all the countries--that it was fascinating to me,” she explains. “I tried a little on my own and got some books and read up on it.”

In England, she notes, many of the topiary gardens are less formal.

“The English like it more whimsical,” she says. “Very often you’ll see animals, even a whole hunt scene as a hedge. There will be a man on a horse going over a fence with hounds and in front of them, the poor little fox, and it’ll all be done in greenery.”

In the United States, the best, most elaborate examples of topiary can be found at the Ladew Topiary Gardens at Monkton, Md., and at Green Animals in Portsmouth, R.I.

Closer to home and more familiar to Southern Californians may be the romping topiary figures near Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World” ride.

Bohannon notes that topiaries, in their portable form, are often seen at outdoor weddings and lawn parties. Small, movable shaped plants and trees often are placed around to add greenery.

About six years ago, Bohannon started clipping and shaping topiaries at the botanic garden.

At South Coast, her handiwork is scattered around near the English Garden, about half a mile from the front entrance. There’s no formal topiary area, although the garden’s foundation hopes to establish one on the grounds and has included it in the garden’s master plan.

For Southern California gardeners, Bohannon recommends “generally, vines and small-leaf compact plants that you think of as close shrubbery--that do not have large blooms. A camellia, for example, would not do well. You want the form; you’re not looking for large flowers during the year.”

And that lack of blooms, Bohannon notes, is one of the advantages of topiary.

“It looks good on a year-round basis,” she says. “It’s not something just to look forward to for three months a year.”

But blossoming vines like bougainvillea are also candidates and, Bohannon says, are quite beautiful in bloom. Herbs like rosemary and thyme also are recommended.

“I have a large round circle of rosemary,” Bohannon says. “It’s lovely to see. It’s aromatic and you can snip a piece for culinary use.”

If you’re worrying about the amount of time topiary will take, don’t.

“It really doesn’t take a lot of clipping,” she says of her home topiary efforts. “I clip about every three weeks and it takes only about a half-hour.”

And you need only a good pair of hand clippers for equipment, she says.

For beginners, Bohannon recommends as a reference “The Complete Book of Topiary” by Barbara Gallup and Deborah Reich, which includes plenty of illustrations and explanations on how to make a form and train the greenery.

An easy introduction to topiary that Bohannon recommends requires a pot, a frame (readily available at many Southland nurseries) and small-leaf ivy:

“Start the ivy all around the pot and tie it to the frame. Within a year, it would virtually cover the frame,” she says.

And if you happen to use a cone shape, you might add lights and ornaments for an instant Christmas tree, come holiday season.

Unlike some other forms of trained plants, such as bonsai, “there isn’t a formula,” Bohannon notes. “You can be quite creative and no one will criticize you.”

South Coast Botanic Garden, 26300 Crenshaw Blvd., Palos Verdes Peninsula. Admission is $3 for adults, $1.50 for seniors and students and 75 cents for children ages 5-12. Younger children are free. There is no charge for the lecture and reservations are not required. For more information, call (213) 772-5813.