Ligustrum delavayi (Teeny Tiny leafed Privet)

This is real topiary. It clips beautifully - green and dense and tough. The more you clip them, the better they look. As with all topiary, don't allow them to flower - just keep clipping. The trouble with flowers is they fade and then the black berries develop and then the birds eat the black berries and by autumn your lovely piece of topiary looks like a gigantic moth has munched it. Flowers and topiary are inimical. Having said that, if you want them to flower, they will. Prodigious quantities of fragrant little white flowers in early summer.

It's an evergreen Privet and seems prey to few pests and diseases. A very cold winter might cause some of the leaves to drop but they recover in the spring.

Propagated by cuttings.

N.B. When clipping several plants with the same tool, have a bucket containing a 5% bleach solution and swish your blades around for 30 seconds between plants to sterilise them. This will help avoid the chance of cross contamination of disease.

As with all woody plants, plant high, exposing as much of the taper at the base of the trunk as possible. Allowing soil to accumulate round the base of a tree can be fatal. Keep very well watered when first planted.