Topiary
The craft of clipping evergreen shrubs and trees into balls, cones, spirals, animals and other shapes.
Topiary is living sculpture. Small-leaved evergreens that take close clipping are used, mainly box, yew, privet and bay. The shapes range from simple spheres and cones to birds and whole chess sets. The practice goes back to Roman gardens and returned to fashion in Renaissance Europe. In floristry the word is also used for a ball of flowers or foliage on a straight stem in a pot, made to look like a small clipped tree.