Lust. The first time I saw a picture of Jacques Wirtz's cloud hedges, I wanted them. Of course, I often look upon glossy magazines of European gardens and covet one thing or another. But the overgrown boxwoods that the Wirtz's clipped into iconic cloud-like shapes stayed with me. They were both solid and structural, yet light and whimsical. Artificial yet organic.
For years now, I've been thinking about using cloud hedges in a design or my own garden, but to be honest, I haven't been confident I can pull it off. After all, cloud hedges are more about garden craftsmanship than design acumen. So I was delighted when I saw Jake Hobson's new book, The Art of Creative Pruning. I hoped I would find a step by step tutorial on how to create this effect. The book unfortunately is more of an illustrative coffee table book than it is a how-to manual. The images themselves are instructive, and Mr. Hobson does give some useful advice for creative pruning. But I found his advice for creating cloud hedges to be a bit too general: " Rough out the basic forms, following the flow of the plants." So I went outside and looked at an overgrown yew hedge in my front yard. I wasn't seeing too much "flow" to work with.
