Bringing a Hedge Back to its Natural State

I recently finished a multiple-day project, restoring a plant that had been pretty heavily hedged, back into its natural essence.

When a plant is turned into a hedge like this, something interesting happens- since plants need light to make food, and the outside of the plant is the only part that sees the light of day, all the foliage on the inside dies. It’s a traumatic process for a plant. My first goal was to clear away some of the outer ‘shell’, to try and make sense of it.

I cleared out the space, and this is what I saw:

Removing more of the dead foliage. I was so elated to discover that the plant had a real, beautiful structure- and was a slanting bonsai-style tree!! My job now was to uncover more of it, to see what else I could discover, and to let more of that structure show.

At the end of day 1, this is what we had. It was a good start.

On day 2 it was time to put in the finishing touches. Discovering that it was a tree, I raised the bottom off the ground and made the branches coming off the trunk more distinct. Some of the needles were left on in bunches to create a ‘cloud’ effect. I’m proud to say this is the final product.

I’ve added this alongside many other of my works on the Portfolio page.

Thanks for reading!

• By : Andrew Ty
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