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Topiary
Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants which have been shaped in this way. As an art form it is a type of living sculpture. The word derives from the Latin word for an ornamental landscape gardener, ''topiarius'', a creator of ''topia'' or "places", a Greek word that Romans also applied to fictive indoor landscapes executed in fresco. The plants used in topiary are evergreen, mostly woody, have small leaves or needles, produce dense foliage, and have compact or columnar (e.g., fastigiate) growth habits. Common species chosen for topiary include cultivars of European box (''Buxus sempervirens''), arborvitae (''Thuja'' species), bay laurel (''Laurus nobilis''), holly (''Ilex'' species), myrtle ('' Eugenia'' or ''Myrtus'' species), yew (''Taxus'' species), and privet ('' Ligust ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Living Sculpture
Living sculpture is any type of sculpture that is created with living, growing grasses, vines, plants or trees. It can be functional and/or ornamental. There are several different types of living sculpture techniques, including topiary (prune plants or train them over frames), sod works (create sculptures using soil and grass or moss), tree shaping (growing designs with living trees) and mowing and crop art (create patterns or pictures with plants or in lawns). Most living sculpture technique requires horticultural skills, such as grafting or pruning, to create the art. History Sculptors through the ages have traditionally worked with non-living media such as clay, plaster, glass, bronze, or even plastic. Although sculpting plants isn’t a new idea (bonsai or topiary have long historical traditions), its recent rediscovery by artists, horticulturalists, gardeners, and young people has given living sculpture an innovative popularity. Living sculpture offers a highly appealing b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buxus Sempervirens
''Buxus sempervirens'', the common box, European box, or boxwood, is a species of flowering plant in the genus ''Buxus'', native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and southwest Asia, from southern England south to northern Morocco, and east through the northern Mediterranean region to Turkey.Rushforth, K. (1999). ''Trees of Britain and Europe''. Collins .British Trees''Buxus sempervirens'' '' Buxus colchica'' of western Caucasus and ''B. hyrcana'' of northern Iran and eastern Caucasus are commonly treated as synonyms of ''B. sempervirens''.Med-Checklist''Buxus colchica'' Ww2.bgbm.org Description ''Buxus sempervirens'' is an evergreen shrub or small tree growing 1 to (3 to ) tall, with a trunk up to in diameter (exceptionally to 10 m tall and 45 cm diameter). Arranged in opposite pairs along the stems, the leaves are green to yellow-green, oval, 1.5–3 cm long, and 0.5–1.3 cm broad. The monoecious flowers are inconspicuous but highly scented ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hedge (barrier)
A hedge or hedgerow is a line of closely spaced (3 feet or closer) shrubs and sometimes trees, planted and trained to form a barrier or to mark the boundary of an area, such as between neighbouring properties. Hedges that are used to separate a road from adjoining fields or one field from another, and are of sufficient age to incorporate larger trees, are known as hedgerows. Often they serve as windbreaks to improve conditions for the adjacent crops, as in bocage country. When clipped and maintained, hedges are also a simple form of topiary. A hedge often operates as, and sometimes is called, a "live fence". This may either consist of individual fence posts connected with wire or other fencing material, or it may be in the form of densely planted hedges without interconnecting wire. This is common in tropical areas where low-income farmers can demarcate properties and reduce maintenance of fence posts that otherwise deteriorate rapidly. Many other benefits can be obtained de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shrub
A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple Plant stem, stems and shorter height, less than tall. Small shrubs, less than tall are sometimes termed as subshrubs. Many botany, botanical groups have species that are shrubs, and others that are trees and herbaceous plants instead. Some define a shrub as less than and a tree as over 6 m. Others use as the cutoff point for classification. Many trees do not reach this mature height because of hostile, less than ideal growing conditions, and resemble shrub-sized plants. Others in such species have the potential to grow taller in ideal conditions. For longevity, most shrubs are classified between Perennial plant, perennials and trees. Some only last about five years in good conditions. Others, usually larger and more woody, live beyond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bay Laurel
''Laurus nobilis'' is an aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub with green, glabrous (smooth) leaves. It is in the flowering plant family Lauraceae. According to Flora Cretica (Kleinsteuber Books, 2024, ISBN 978-3-9818110-5-6) the stem can be 1 meter in diameter; the tree can be as high as 20 metres. It is native to the Mediterranean region and is used as bay leaf for seasoning in cooking. Its common names include bay tree (esp. United Kingdom), bay laurel, sweet bay, true laurel, Grecian laurel, or simply laurel. ''Laurus nobilis'' figures prominently in classical Greco-Roman culture. Worldwide, many other kinds of plants in diverse families are also called "bay" or "laurel", generally due to similarity of foliage or aroma to ''Laurus nobilis''. Description The laurel is an evergreen shrub or small tree, variable in size and sometimes reaching tall. The genus ''Laurus'' includes three accepted species, whose diagnostic key characters often overlap. The bay laurel is di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (50927 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC476 AD) until the fall of the western empire. Ancient Rome began as an Italic peoples, Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually controlled the Italian Peninsula, assimilating the Greece, Greek culture of southern Italy (Magna Graecia) and the Etruscans, Etruscan culture, and then became the dominant power in the Mediterranean region and parts of Europe. At its hei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phillyrea
''Phillyrea'' is a genus of two species of flowering plants in the family Oleaceae, native to the Mediterranean region, and naturalized in the Canary Islands and Madeira. They are evergreen shrubs or small trees growing to 3–9 m tall, related to '' Ligustrum'', ''Olea'' and ''Osmanthus''. The leaves are in opposite pairs, small, leathery, ovate to lanceolate, 2–6 cm long and 0.5–2 cm broad. The flowers are small, greenish-white, produced in short clusters. The fruit is a drupe containing a single seed. Species *'' Phillyrea angustifolia'' L. - native to western and central Mediterranean Basin, Portugal to Albania. *'' Phillyrea latifolia'' L. - native to entire Mediterranean Basin, Portugal to Syria. A third species ''P. decora'' from the Caucasus is now usually treated in the genus ''Osmanthus'' as ''Osmanthus decorus ''Osmanthus'' is a genus of about 30 species of flowering plants in the family (biology), family Oleaceae. Most of the species are native t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ligustrum
A privet is a flowering plant in the genus ''Ligustrum''. The genus contains about 50 species of erect, deciduous or evergreen shrubs or trees, with a native distribution from Europe to tropical and subtropical Asia, and with one species each native to Australia and north Africa. Some species have become widely naturalized or invasive where introduced. ''Privet'' was originally the name for the European semi-evergreen shrub '' Ligustrum vulgare'', and later also for the more reliably evergreen '' Ligustrum ovalifolium'' and its hybrid '' Ligustrum × ibolium'' used extensively for privacy hedging, though now the name is applied to all members of the genus. The generic name was applied by Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) to ''L. vulgare''. It is often suggested that the name ''privet'' is related to ''private'', but the Oxford English Dictionary states that there is no evidence to support this. Description Privet is a group of shrubs and small trees of southern and eastern Asia, fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taxus
''Taxus'' is a genus of coniferous trees or shrubs known as yews in the family Taxaceae. Yews occur around the globe in temperate zones of the northern hemisphere, northernmost in Norway and southernmost in the South Celebes. Some populations exist in tropical highlands. The oldest known fossil species are from the Early Cretaceous. Morphology They are relatively slow-growing and can be very long-lived, and reach heights of , with trunk girth averaging . They have reddish bark, lanceolate, flat, dark-green leaves long and broad, arranged spirally on the stem, but with the leaf bases twisted to align the leaves in two flat rows either side of the stem. The male cones are globose, across, and shed their pollen in early spring. Yews are mostly dioecious, but occasional individuals can be variably monoecious, or change sex with time. The seed cones are highly modified, each cone containing a single seed long partly surrounded by a modified scale which develops into a soft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Myrtus
''Myrtus'' (commonly called myrtle) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Myrtaceae. It was first described by Swedish botanist Linnaeus in 1753. Over 600 names have been proposed in the genus, but nearly all have either been moved to other genera or been regarded as synonyms. The genus ''Myrtus'' has three species recognised today: *'' Myrtus communis'' – Common myrtle; native to the Mediterranean region in southern Europe *''Myrtus nivellei'' – Saharan myrtle; native to North Africa *'' Myrtus phyllireaefolia'' Description Common myrtle '' Myrtus communis'', the "common myrtle", is native across the Mediterranean region, Macaronesia, western Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. It is also cultivated. The plant is an evergreen shrub or small tree, growing to tall. The leaf is entire, 3–5 cm long, with a fragrant essential oil. The star-like flower has five petals and sepals, and numerous stamens. Petals usually are white. The flower is pollinated by i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
