Collection Topiary balls
Grown Tuscany, Italy
Sold as Matched pairs
From £270 the pair
Topiary Balls — Matched Pairs
One perfect sphere. Then its twin.
The clipped ball is where topiary begins — the softest formality there is, and it works everywhere. English yew, Japanese holly, photinia Red Robin, Portuguese laurel and more, from doorstep spheres upward — every listing a true matched pair, grown in Tuscany and photographed at our UK depot before dispatch.
Matched pairs from £270 · delivered kerbside UK-wide
How to chooseOne shape.Three questions.
Answer these and the collection collapses to your pair.
Why is the ball the fundamental form?
Because it's the shape topiary was invented to make, and the one every garden can carry. A sphere has no bad angle: it reads the same from the door, the gate and the kitchen window, holds its outline through winter, and softens rather than dominates — formality without the starch. If you're only ever going to own one piece of topiary, it should probably be a pair of these.
How does size work?
Balls are sold by diameter band, and a bigger ball is simply an older ball — more clipping-years, so a denser, fuller surface. 20–30cm spheres suit pots, steps and window ledges; 30–50cm is doorstep and mid-border scale; 50–70cm holds a statement position on its own; 80–90cm is grand-entrance territory. Match the diameter to the width of the space, not to the budget — an undersized pair reads as an apology.
Which species for which site?
Shade points to English yew or Japanese holly — both hold a tight sphere in light the others resent. Colour that performs is photinia Red Robin, flushing flame-red after every trim. Gold is the compact thuja's alone. And for cold, windy or coastal positions, Portuguese laurel is the sphere that simply doesn't notice.
Where a pair of spheresearns its keep.
Three deployments. One pinned frame. Scroll.
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The doorstep pair
The classic for a reason: two spheres either side of the door give symmetry without severity — softer than cones, friendlier than cubes, and established-looking from the day the pallet arrives. Scale the diameter to the frontage, pot them well, and the job is done for a decade. The entrance collection is built around exactly this move.
Rhythm along paths & borders
Repetition is formal design's oldest trick, and no form repeats better than the ball: pairs at intervals turn a route into a procession, and a run of spheres along a bed edge reads as intention from fifty metres. The driveways & pathways collection carries the scale for it — and for a continuous clipped line instead, there's border edging by the metre.
Full stops among loose planting
Drop a clipped sphere into a billowing border and everything around it suddenly looks deliberate — the ball is the punctuation that lets loose planting read as prose rather than chaos. One per sightline is enough; in smaller gardens it's the single highest-value move there is, as our small gardens guide argues at length.
The ball pairs.Every price, honest.
Drag through the range — matched-pair prices including VAT, banded by size and age.
N° 01
Prim & Proper — the darkest green, one trim a year, takes shade.
£325 – £670 · 30–70cm
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The range runs £245 – £1,070 the pair, with compact golden thuja spheres (Midas & Aurin, 20–90cm) opening it at £245. Around the pairs: single shaped plants from £80 and clipped border edging from £275 per metre. The full market logic is in the topiary prices guide.
One sphere.Four personalities.
Same discipline, different characters — pick by site first, then by look.
N° 01
Best overall — darkest green, takes shade, lives for generations. The whole story is in the yew guide.
N° 03
The colour-changer — flame-red new growth after every trim; see the photinia guide.
You won't find box here, deliberately: box blight and the box tree moth made it a liability, and Japanese holly is the near-identical, fully immune successor — the swap covered in our pests & diseases guide. Prefer the shape on a stem? The same spheres ride clear trunks in the lollipop collection.
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Selected together · raised side by side · photographed before dispatch
Buying topiary balls.Quick answers.
The questions buyers actually ask, answered by the growers.
What are topiary balls?
Evergreen shrubs clipped into solid spheres — topiary's fundamental form, and its most versatile. A ball reads the same from every angle, holds its outline through winter, and delivers formality at its softest, which is why it works at doorsteps, along paths, in borders and in pots alike. Ours are sold as true matched pairs, selected and grown together in Tuscany.
What are the best plants for topiary balls?
English yew for the darkest, longest-lived sphere; Japanese holly for the tight box look without box's diseases; photinia Red Robin for colour; Portuguese laurel for exposed sites; compact golden thuja for gold. Site decides first — shade rules out photinia, hard wind rules in laurel.
How much do topiary balls cost?
Our matched pairs run from £245 to £1,070 including VAT, and the price is essentially diameter: a bigger ball is an older ball, with more clipping-years in its surface. Compact golden thuja opens the range at £245 for a 20–30cm pair; an 80–90cm pair of the same species is £1,070. Single shaped plants start at £80 — the wider maths is in the prices guide.
What sizes do yew balls come in?
Our English yew pair, Prim & Proper, comes in four diameter bands — 30–40cm (£325 the pair), 40–50cm (£370), 50–60cm (£590) and 60–70cm (£670). The 50–60cm band is the doorstep sweet spot for most frontages; go up a band for double doors or a deep porch.
Do topiary balls grow well in pots?
They're the best container topiary there is — the sphere suits a pot visually the way nothing else does. Yew, Japanese holly, photinia and laurel all thrive in generous frost-proof planters with real drainage holes; add pot feet from October. The full manual is in the pots guide.
How do I keep a topiary ball round?
Trim little and often rather than rarely and hard, and always work around the curve — short overlapping passes that follow the sphere — never flat across it, which cuts facets you'll see for a season. Step back constantly and circle the plant as you go; the eye catches a bulge that the hand misses. Two light sessions a year keep most species crisp; yew asks only one.
Will topiary balls grow in shade?
Yes, if you pick the right species: English yew and Japanese holly both hold a dense sphere in partial and even quite deep shade. Photinia and golden thuja want sun to earn their colour, so keep those for the bright side of the house.
How far apart should I space topiary balls?
For a doorstep pair, centre one sphere each side of the door, clear of the swing. For runs along a path or border, leave roughly a full diameter of air between spheres — close enough to read as a rhythm, far enough that each ball keeps its own outline as it fattens. When in doubt, send a photo to the free consultation and we'll mark it up.
How are the pairs delivered — and what if something goes wrong?
Kerbside on a pallet by specialist haulier, UK-wide, 14–21 working days from order, with the driver phoning about an hour ahead. Every pair is photographed side by side at our UK depot before dispatch, backed by the 7-day Matching Guarantee (resolved within 24 hours), the 6-month Thrive Guarantee through establishment, and Lifetime Care Support after that — details at delivery & returns.
Matched beforeyou ever see it.
Two spheres, selected together in Tuscany, raised as twins — so the symmetry at your door is grown, not approximate.
Your actual pair, side by side at our UK depot, before the pallet is built.
7-day Matching Guarantee, then the 6-month Thrive Guarantee through establishment.
Lifetime Care Support — a photo gets grower answers for as long as you own the plants.
