Trimmings

With all the knocking about they're doing round here I'm having to go the long way round to get home some nights: they've closed a couple of roads for to build new houses and whatnot. It's an opportunity to have a nosey at some different gardens as I walk along. Most are pretty nondescript but every so often something catches my eye. One garden is decked out in shingle and birch logs and planted up with sorrel and delphiniums (where did that combination come from?) Another is so densely planted with Berberis that you still smell of honey two blocks down. With all due deference to The Topiary Cow, I cannot for the life of me condone the topiarising of a Camelia. The poor thing is awash with flower now, lush and pink and glossy, but the overall effect is to look cramped and bodged and hurt. I should feel the same about the two Forsythias a few doors further along: they've been trimmed into perfect children's lollipop trees but they actually look quite splendid, like big Belisha beacons slowly turning emerald green as the leaves unfurl. Very nice.