Here is the whole year for all four materials, so you can see what is due now and what you can ignore. The problems people bring us are nearly always timing: a cut made in the wrong month, a feed given too late, a plant that went into winter dry.
The second cut of the year happens in late summer, once the growth has firmed.
Work from your own frost dates rather than from the calendar. The headings below are seasons, and your climate decides when each one starts. The cutting advice is written for boxwood.
Late winter
Live: do nothing to the plant. This is the month people get impatient and cut, and a cut now pushes soft growth that the next cold wind burns. Water the evergreens if the ground is not frozen and the weather has been dry. Winter desiccation does more damage than cold.
Mossed: check that nothing is standing in water. A piece left in a saucer of rain all winter is the one that fails.
Artificial and preserved: nothing is due.
Early spring
Live: give the first feed of the year as growth begins. Use a balanced feed rather than a high-nitrogen one, because soft fast growth holds its shape badly and burns in wind.
Mossed: start watching the moss again as temperatures rise, because the interval between waterings shortens fast. This is also the month to plant into a mossed piece, so the roots establish before summer.
Artificial outdoors: rinse the winter grime off. It is the only maintenance there is, and it changes how a piece looks more than anything else you can do to it.
Late spring
Live: make the first cut once the first flush of growth has firmed, never while it is still soft. Sharp blades, a cool morning. On a spiral, cut the gaps before you dress the ridge. On a pom pom, rub the soft shoots off the bare stems with a thumb.
Mossed: start checking most days once the weather is warm. Soak it rather than misting it.
Summer
Live: water, particularly anything in a container or in its first two summers. Check the root ball with a finger. The surface lies. Watch for pests, because dense foliage hides them until the damage shows. Do not cut in the heat of the day.
Mossed: check a piece in sun every day or two. Sphagnum dries fast in heat.
Artificial: what you bought and where you put it decide how much UV damage the summer does. Nothing can be done about it while it is happening.
Preserved: move it out of the sunbeam that has crossed the room since winter. Sun angles change, so a piece that was safe in January can sit in direct light in July.
Late summer
Live: the second and final cut of the year. Leave the plant alone afterwards, so the growth it makes has time to harden before the cold. If your first frost comes early, bring the cut forward.
Mossed: the second window for working fresh sphagnum into the old, if you are not planting into the piece.
Autumn
Live: give the second feed in October, or earlier if winter arrives early where you are. Then water deeply through late autumn, right up until the ground freezes.
That watering is the most valuable thing on this page, and it is the one people skip. An evergreen that goes into winter dry cannot replace what it loses through its leaves. The damage shows months later.
Lighted pieces: check the strings and the connections now, rather than on the evening you want them lit.
Early winter
Live: move exposed containers out of the worst wind if you can. A cold wind pulls moisture out of evergreen foliage faster than still cold air does, so an exposed plant suffers more than a sheltered one at the same temperature.
Group the containers together or lag the pot. You are protecting the root ball, not the foliage.
Lighted: run them. Keep plugs and joins off the ground.
Everything else: nothing, except knocking heavy snow off wide flat-topped artificial pieces.
$155. Live: two cuts and two feeds a year.
$282. Mossed: watering, and at six months either plant into it or work fresh sphagnum into the old.
Quoted. Preserved: dust it, and keep it out of sun and damp.
The whole year for artificial and preserved
Preserved: dust it occasionally and keep it out of sun and damp. None of it changes by month. Sun means a south-facing window or a conservatory, and damp means a bathroom or an unheated porch, so a dim hallway suits it well.
Artificial outdoors: rinse it in spring, knock heavy snow off wide flat-topped pieces, and keep containers draining so trapped water cannot freeze and split them. None of that prevents fading. What you bought and where you put it decide that.
Artificial and preserved ask for almost nothing all year, and that is the honest case for both. It is why they end up in commercial buildings and at doorways nobody tends.
The running cost of a live piece is set out in what a live boxwood costs to keep. If you are ordering for a hotel or an office, read specifying for a commercial interior first.
Care by piece type is on the care page. Cultivars and zones are in the zone guide, and the field guide covers identifying a disease.
Questions we get asked
When should I cut topiary?
Twice a year on boxwood: once in late spring when the first flush has firmed, and once in late summer. Never cut in winter, and never in the heat of the day in high summer. Leave enough time after the second cut for the new growth to harden before your first frost.
What is the most important job in the year?
Watering evergreens deeply through late autumn, right up until the ground freezes. A plant that goes into winter dry cannot replace what it loses through its leaves, and the bronzing appears months later.
How often do mossed pieces need water in summer?
In warm weather a piece in sun can want attention every day or two, because sphagnum dries fast in heat. Soak it rather than misting it.
Does artificial topiary need anything?
A rinse in spring, snow knocked off wide flat-topped pieces, and containers that drain so trapped water cannot freeze and split them. Fading is the exception: no amount of care stops it, because the specification and the position decide it.
Does preserved topiary need seasonal care?
No. Dust it occasionally and keep it out of sun and damp. Check the sun as the seasons change: a piece that was safe in January can sit in direct light in July.
