Churches are quite common designs among topiarists, but it is interesting to notice that seldom is there a doorway provided, and obviously if there is no congregation there will be no collection taken. The churchyard is also provided for, inasmuch as verdant tombstones and Latin crosses are grown in considerable numbers, and some of these would be vast improvements upon many of the ugly head-stones and other memorials of a more solid character that crowd our graveyards. Pyramids, mop-heads, and blunt cones are among the commonest designs; they do not call for the exercise of much ingenuity, but when these pyramidal trees are cut into several regular and well graded tiers their cost increases considerably. Another form of tree that naturally suggests itself to the Dutch grower, who all his life is used to water and boats, is that of a sailing ship, or barge; but these are not so easy to evolve from either box or yew, and they call for a good deal of training in addition to the cutting and clipping necessary to keep them shapely. Thin wires and a few light bamboo rods usually complete the training outfit necessary, but taking the whole range of topiarian design, training, in the sense of tying out, is not much practised.
Compared with the designs enumerated in the catalogue that Pope’s fancy created, the modern list of verdant sculptures is a very modest one. True we may have Jugs and Beakers, Wreaths as well as Crosses, and Swans as well as Peacocks, varying in price from three guineas to ten guineas each, but the moderns do not attempt to pourtray Adam and Eve, nor do they caricature the poets and statesmen of the age, in living box and yew.
Prices are governed chiefly by the size and age (height and density), and the design of the specimen. The yew tree being of slower growth than the box is, size for size, the most expensive of the two, and well furnished examples that have not exceeded marketable size vary in age from twenty to sixty years. Even when designed in box the birds are about ten or twelve years old, dogs twelve to fourteen years, and taller designs from fifteen to eighteen years. Some of the finer examples found in the country districts of Holland need to have their root system cut around one year, so that they may be safely lifted, transported to this country and transplanted in the following season.