The inaugural topiary awards are open now

Britain's best topiary artists, both professional and amateur, are being sought out in a new topiary award.

Epic scale topiary at Levens Hall, an Elizabethan stately home, near Kendal in the Lake District, with Head Gardener Chris Crowder working on part of what is believed to be the world's oldest topiary garden.
Epic scale topiary at Levens Hall, an Elizabethan stately home, near Kendal in the Lake District, with Head Gardener Chris Crowder working on part of what is believed to be the world's oldest topiary garden.
(Image credit: AFP via Getty Images)
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The search is on for Britain’s best topiary artists thanks to the inaugural Topiary Awards, which are now open for entries until May 31.

The awards are being run — fittingly — by a garden ladder specialist called Henchman, who will be handing out awards in two categories: best professional topiary, and best home garden creation. Entering is easy: simply send some pictures of your creations via the website at henchman.co.uk/henchman-topiary-awards.

The Judges include Elizabeth Hilliard, editor of European Boxwood and Topiary Society magazine Topiarus; Michael Buck, head of horticulture at Creepers Nursery; and Andy Bourke, aka The Hedge Barber, whose topiary creations have earned him a huge following on Instagram.

If you're looking for inspiration, Country Life has run plenty of articles over the years featuring some staggering hedges. In 2018 Mark Griffiths explained how to get started in topiary, and more recently we've looked at the stunning topiary at Cressy Hall, and an ex-Beatle's creations in our piece on George Harrison's garden.

Michael & Janey Hill's Topiary at Cressy Hall. Michael grew the yews from tiny saplings and over 35 years has created over 100 of the most beautiful topiary shapes. Photo: Andrew Sydenham/Country Life
(Image credit: Andrew Sydenham/Country Life Pic)

‘Topiary has been an important part of British gardening for centuries and we hope the awards will not only shine a light on those talented individuals who create topiary, but also inspire the next generation of gardeners to try their hand,’ says Owen Simpson, managing director of Henchman. Winners will be announced, and prizes awards, at the RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival (July 2–7).

euridge manor farm

A chess-like grid of topiary enlivens a corner of the cloister garden. ©Val Corbett/Country Life Picture Library
(Image credit: ©Val Corbett/Country Life Picture Library)
Annunciata Elwes
Annunciata Elwes

Annunciata grew up in the wilds of Lancashire and now lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and an awful pug called Parsley. She’s been floating round the Country Life office for more than a decade, her work winning the Property Magazine of the Year Award in 2022 (Property Press Awards). Before that, she had a two-year stint writing ‘all kinds of fiction’ for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, worked in internal comms for Country Life’s publisher (which has had many names in recent years but was then called IPC Media), and spent another year researching for a historical biographer, whose then primary focus was Graham Greene and John Henry Newman and whose filing system was a collection of wardrobes and chests of drawers filled with torn scraps of paper. During this time, she regularly gave tours of 17th-century Milton Manor, Oxfordshire, which may or may not have been designed by Inigo Jones, and co-founded a literary, art and music festival, at which Johnny Flynn headlined. When not writing and editing for Country Life, Annunciata is also a director of TIN MAN ART, a contemporary art gallery founded in 2021 by her husband, James Elwes.

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