Standard Life

Now is a great time to fertilise your Buxus plants with a top dress fertiliser, so that your plants are lush and green for spring.

Lonicera nitida bowls trimmed today and looking fantastic.

Remember to trim your Buxus topiary before the winter months to ensure you make the most of the new spring growth.

Topiary ideas for Christmas

More ideas with Lonicera nitida - a great, versatile plant.

It's time to trim your Lonicera to keep it in shape and looking fantasic.

Be inspired with some of these fantastic examples of topiary.

Olympic Topiaries Olympic Topiaries - China is doing a lot to prepare for the Olympic games next month, including sprucing up the aesthetics of the city. These giant topiaries are a fan...

After all this wet weather we keep hearing people say they have blight in their buxus plants. But how do they really know?
The Boxwood Handbook from the American Boxwood Society idenitifies 5 different diseases - Phytophthora, Macrophoma leaf spot, Volutella (blight), Nematodes and Decline.
If you think you have box blight they recommend checking that this is the problem before doing anything. To do this, prune a small twig or several leaves that appear to have the symptoms. Wet this sample with water. Place it in a zip-lock plastic bag and keep the sample in a cool area. After a week or two, fuzzy pink colonies will develop if it is Volutella (blight).

The Easter Bunny - what topiary will they think of next. We're not this creative at Standard Life - but I'm not sure if there would be much demand for large rabbits in the average NZ garden.

Remember to keep your potted topiary watered in this hot weather. It's now too hot to trim any buxus plants you have - as they will get sun burnt.

Some great Christmas gift ideas