From the very first day I saw Edward Scissorhands, I’ve been in love with the movie. Not only is the film beautiful and heart wrenching but the art design and production is awesome. I love the unique aesthetic of Tim Burton’s films, recognisable yet always reinvented. Since seeing Edward Scissorhands I’ve always wanted to have an enormous garden with hedge sculptures of weird animals and creatures.

When I finally got my own place I had the opportunity to try my own hand at topiary. Given that I know nothing about gardening, my ventures were a total failure. I chose some plants arbitrarily thinking they’d be fine to grow into hedges, and when they were large enough I hacked at them without any forethought. The trees looked like anorexic aliens with chunks bombed out of them. It was a disaster. I gave up on my dreams of having an Edward Scissorhands garden and left the shrubbery to grow on its own…

It wasn’t long before the growth was out of control. The once squat shrubs had grown into mammoth full-sized trees. It was at this point that a friend of mine recommended services for tree pruning. Melbourne is probably the last place you’d expect to find good arborists but I was surprised by the quality of their work. The trees were dangerously close to the powerline and they looked unsightly too, but the tree pruning company took care of it. They know how to cut the trees without making them look butchered and they can cut them in such a way as to promote or inhibit growth, depending on your preference. I have to say, things looked so much better after the tree trimming. Melbourne companies are good at what they do.  

Perhaps I’ll have another crack at making my dream garden one day, but not before taking a crash course in topiary. And this time I’ll have to pay more attention to the type of hedges i plant to make sure that they don’t turn into giant trees.