56 THE BOOK OF TOPIARY ; 
Where the garden has been planted with mixed 
trees—such as yew, holly, boxwood and horn-beam, © 
the clipping should all be done in the autumn so as 
to give the garden a tidy and uniform appearance. 
Autumn is not generally considered the right season of 
the year for holly clipping, but if there are some, more 
or less, planted among the yews in the Topiary garden, 
it is necessary that they should be clipped at the same 
time as the other subjects, for the sake of appearance. 
But if hollies are planted by themselves in some isolated 
part of the garden, whether in hedges or bushes, the 
work of clipping them should be carried out towards 
the latter end of May or beginning of June; then hard 
clipping every other year will suffice for them. At 
Levens we clip the holly hedges which are not actually 
in the Topiary garden hard back to the old wood every 
alternate year, and other years we merely go over them 
with a pair of shears and cut away the long shoots. I 
am rather of the opinion that hard clipping of hollies 
every year is more injurious than beneficial to the trees. 
It is evident to anyone who has seen an old Dutch or 
Topiary garden, that, in the formation and laying out of 
the grounds, boxwood has always been considered one 
of the principal features, and in most of them it remains 
so to this day. 
Where box succeeds well and remains in perfect 
health, no care or attention should be spared to keep it 
so, for there is no edging that can be used in the garden 
to be compared with it for beauty. It has, however, 
some drawbacks, the principal one of which is the 
excellent accommodation it affords to snails and other 
garden pests; but its advantages more than counter- 
balance its defects. Like the hollies, every other year 
is sufficient for clipping it, and there is no more suitable 
month for the work than June. There should be no 
clipping done to boxwood until all danger of frost is 
