Shape shifting

Some trees can’t help growing out of control, but Toby has some tricks to keep those in small spaces in check

- Toby

ON my way into town, I pass a rapidly growing blue cedar that’s planted in the tiny front garden of a Victorian terrace. It’s only been there a decade, yet it already looms like an arboricultural cuckoo over the garden path and worries the gutters.

It won’t be long before it smothers the neighbours or is felled, and is proof – if needed – that large trees and small gardens don’t mix. That said, there are techniques – perfected over centuries by Japanese gardeners – that can mini-me even a mighty blue cedar.

Bonsai is the most extreme and well-known method (see the panel), and works for both trees and climbers. There’s also cloud pruning, which is suited to medium-sized trees and shrubs, plus a ‘new kid on the block’ already being practised by forward-thinking nurseries here in the UK.