Topiary Garden
Test your imagination with these beautifully off-kilter plant forms.
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In every season, living evergreen and deciduous plant sculptures transport you to another world where anything goes—as long as it’s unexpected.
This garden was designed in 2002 by architect and landscape designer David Swetland. And since it primarily consists of young trees and shrubs, it grows more abstract by the year.
Every detail of form, texture, and color was carefully selected to give the garden its quirky atmosphere. There are no straight edges here. Instead, you’ll see abundant circles and sinuous lines intersecting with conical, rounded and pendulous shapes that delightfully surprise and playfully confound.
Notice the “candle forests” of spruces, arborvitaes and falsecypress. Eccentric-looking seasonal plantings round out this otherworldly beauty.
Things to Discover
Topiary Tunnel | Many topiary gardens have carved their plants into fanciful vegetable animals, birds, and garden gnomes. Ours mainly depicts abstract shapes: sinuous curving forms, angular masses … and this spruce-y tunnel. We do have one special creature—it’s a giant peacock spreading its tail of |
more
Many topiary gardens have carved their plants into fanciful vegetable animals, birds, and garden gnomes. Ours mainly depicts abstract shapes: sinuous curving forms, angular masses … and this spruce-y tunnel. We do have one special creature—it’s a giant peacock spreading its tail of golden Yew leaves. Have you ever heard a peacock? Loud!
Coleus ‘Inferno’ (Coleus scutellarioides) | When grown in full sun with enough water, and pinched a few times along the way, modern Coleus cultivars just grow bigger and bolder … until the first frost. We have several varieties at the Garden ranging from rainbow multi-hued to nearly black.
Morning Sentinels | We’ve seen these fastigiate spruces before, but in winter, their tall, lean statures expose their evolved intent: to shed and withstand the branch-snapping insults of heavy, wet snows. The topiary garden is charming all seasons.
Here’s more to explore at Cleveland Botanical Garden
Madagascar Glasshouse
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Woodland Garden
You’ll be joined by butterflies, songbirds, and wild flowers as you explore our most informal and expansive retreat. This forest offers year-round enchantment, but feels especially magical when you visit... more
The Nature of Healing
Experience the transformative power of art and nature! Saturday, April 5 – Sunday, May 18 The Nature of Healing is a group art exhibition featuring around 30 local artists. Co-curated... more
Restorative Garden
This garden abounds with flowers, trees, and shrubs that will offer a soothing respite from the everyday. Large trees like chestnut oak and magnolia provide a soothing sense of enclosure.... more
Orchids: Love in Bloom
Fall in love all over again as Cleveland's favorite orchid show returns. more
Sunken Garden
This cultivated garden filled with seasonal flowers and native trees and shrubs sits nestled in the corner underneath the Botanical Garden’s Japanese Overlook Hallway. This secret oasis is perfect for... more
Geis Terrace
Host all your get-togethers and garden parties on the welcoming Geis Terrace. It’s the perfect spot for an al fresco lunch with family or happy hour with friends. Seasonal plantings... more
Perennial Garden
Our ever-changing path indulges your senses with a collage of hues and textures. One day you might spy a group of towering foxtail lilies, and a month later come across... more
