Learn To Clip & Topiary Design by EBTS at Clipsham Yew Tree Avenue 2026

In September Chris Poole and Darren Lerigo of EBTS returned to Clipsham Yew Tree Avenue to deliver another beginners Learn To Clip course, as well as, for the first time, an Advanced Learn To Clip course.

 

We have now taught well over 1000 people the clipping technique and the foundations of good pruning practise through the EBTS courses, but this advanced course was a giant step up for participants – as now they had to put into practise the art of topiary, and develop their ideas about what makes a clipped plant – the green architecture in a garden – beautiful.

 

Working with mature boxwood and yew, the participants had to think hard about what was possible, getting to know each individual plant and what was interesting about it, or not so good about it, then figure out a shape that would ‘hum’ – fit in – with all of the other forms in the avenue. They then had to work fast doing the clipping, keeping tools clean and sharp of course, to create these new shapes that would improve the topiary at Clipsham.

 

It was such good fun, and remarkable how far people had come from showing an interest in pruning topiary to actually using the basic techniques they had been taught by EBTS to make some amazing topiary shapes.

 

Chris and Darren then continued work on the patterns they had been making from last year, the relief work on the facades of the mature yews in the avenue. They also started some new designs which were already taking shape after just one clip. They all need a few more years of growth to become denser, and have more character, but you can really see where the designs are going just from the first basic clip.

 

EBTS will be running Learn To Clip courses again next year at Clipsham Yew Tree Avenue – further details will be available via their website yewtreeavenue.co.uk