October 26, 2023 • 27 mins
Ben, Noel and super producer Casey Pegram dive back into the weeds of the surprisingly ancient (and ridiculous) art of trimming flora into bizarre and elaborate shapes. It’s a practice that had a habit of falling in and out of fashion depending on the whims of whoever was in power. Were topiaries simply an elaborate flex for the super rich or something that could be appreciated by everyone? Or maybe both?! Find out in this second part of the history of topiaries.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear for the man, the myth,
the legend. He's known around the world for being one
of the best podcast producers and biggest centophiles out there,
also having terrible taste in friends. That's right, Casey Pegram
has joined us once again for part two on the
(00:49):
history of topiary.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Here too, kind Ben, thanks for having me. Here's our guy, Geez.
I don't know, man, we don't really need much preamble here. Well,
I think you're nol I'm bad, that's your part. I
am Still it is a fascinating topic. I don't think
any of us had any idea that there was this
much to discuss about the surprisingly old art of topiery.
(01:12):
So let's just jump right into it. Guys, what do
you say to it? Yes, yes, the French tradition, I
guess kind of reached its peak under what often is
the case the sun king himself. I mean, anytime we
have something that peaks in French history, it's usually because
this dude had something to do with it. This is
quite opulent fellow Louis the fourteenth in the Palace of Versailles,
(01:36):
which was nothing if not maximal, but of course only
had one on one bathroom, one toilet.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
The richest people in France were like, well, I'm gonna
go poop in the yard by the topieri topiary.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, you got to make room for all the topiary.
Were they still using human waste as as fertilizer back then,
because that would makes sense. They were like they just
didn't feel it was that's that's gold, right there, don't
be flushing that down brown gold.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Versailles had these four thousand acre gardens. It's huge. You
can hear us talk about it in the History of restrooms.
And they had very high standards for their for how
these topiary things should be cut. One point nine million
pots were always on hand so that the beds could
(02:26):
be replanted overnight while the king slept and he could
wake up to a surprise the next day. It's just
absolutely indicative of why France had a revolution.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yes, sure, maybe she didn't say let the meat cake,
but the attitude of let the meat cake was pretty pervasive, right.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
One hundred percent, dude. And then if you go across
the channel over to England. You'll see they had something
called the not garden. So they would take a bunch
of herbs and they would tie them together, you know,
like doing a French braid and hair or to like
or rope bridge. And then they had English yu trees
of course because you know it's England, and they would
(03:06):
also clip those down into hedges and grow them out
into mazes. It was very it was very hot.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Time, absolutely, and then we have the Dutch entering the chat.
Who you know, if you've ever been to Amsterdam, unbelievably beautiful, flowerful,
you know, fields like gardens really just it's like everywhere. Honestly,
there's a there's a Mario Kart level for Amsterdam that
was recently added and it is just chock full of
(03:33):
windmills and tulips. But yeah, the Dutch really got a
got a taste for gardening. But also we know, if
you know anything about Amsterdam, you know that it's it's
it's a very packed kind of metro type city. So
space is really precious, so they had to figure out
ways to maximize space, and in order to do that,
(03:54):
they got mega precise micro with their calculations for these gardens,
and they also, surprise, surprise, were super into topiary. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
The thing is so the Netherlands now, you know, Amsterdam
is a very old, very heavily developed city and if
you go out, you know, there really are these picturesque
tulip fields and windmills and all that.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
And they were always as a country struggling with space
in the days of their maritime trade empire. They had
a very different take on topiery and ornamental gardens in
general because they had simply encountered many new species of
plant life, and so they were able to flex super
(04:43):
duper hard on this. And you could go to a garden,
a Dutch garden, and you would see plants and flowers
that you couldn't see anywhere else in Europe, at least
at this time. And so the well to do in
England start picking and choosing the kind of stuff they
want to emulate. So they're like, okay, we're gonna we
(05:04):
like the uniformity, the grand duel of the French style.
We also love, we're in love with these Dutch strong
geometric patterns, and we want to get you know, maybe
one day we can get some of those fancy tulips.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
But this is still like the era.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Of humanity where you would rent a pineapple to impress
people at a party.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
So maybe they didn't get the tulips, but they wanted
to look like. They wanted people to look at their
gardens and say, oh, they know about the Netherlands.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
That's right. Yeah, and we you know, we certainly have
parallels to that. Oh in society, people living above their
means or you know, having some sort of thing that
there's a status symbol or whatever that might be adorning
their their home or their clothing or whatever it might be. Yeah, sure, exactly.
So look at me, I'm a fancy guy, even though
(05:53):
maybe you're living check to check, it's it's it's it's
a it's a pretty tough situation. There's that fancy guy.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
He's that fancy guy with that wristwatch and a phone
he could tell time twice.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And the default mortgage.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Right, So yeah, we see that this, you know, this
race to acquire social status via topierian specific is to
your point, noal, It is a microcosmic example of the
larger human urge across culture to impress people based on
(06:28):
your material possessions and it should not be a surprise
that the Tudors embrace topiary, and Henry the Eighth says,
I'm gonna go to the Romans.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
He goes.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
He hires some Italian gardeners to transform Hampton Court. He
gets real deal Italian landscapers. And when a German writer
named Thomas Platter visits Hampton Court during the reign of
Elizabeth I, he goes nuts. We've even got a quote
from him. He was really impressed. I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
He had to say that he beheld all manner of shapes,
men and women, half men and half horse, sirens serving
maids with baskets, French lilies and delicate crenelations. That's a
great word, all true to the life, and so cleverly
and amusingly interwoven, mingled and grown together, trimmed and arranged
(07:22):
picture wise that their equal would be difficult to find. Beautiful.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah. Oh, plus he's also he's a writer, so he's
pretty talented at that.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
But okay, that's how he talked too, I did it.
That was a perfect impression. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
We based that on YouTube recordings from his vlog. So
William the Third introduces the Dutch style and then he
is the guy who commissions the Hampton Court Maze. Around
seventeen hundred, they built this. Beat me here, Casey, they
build this big maze, and it's like a hearts and
minds thing. It's to impress company, you know, folks to
(07:58):
pay are where he grew up up in the US,
your parents might have done something similar, like a small
version of this is the guest bathroom has the decorative
soap that no one can touch, or the decorative hand towels.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah right, right, right, Oh man. I always get so irritated.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
I get it. I love festivity. I like commemorating occasions,
but it always irritated me as a utilitarian and a
minimalist to know that there was this entire part of
a hall closet that was like, we only put this
stuff out during Halloween or Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
This is the you know, end of the year stuff.
I've just converted to like a Halloween house. So I
just keep my decorations up all year. I add little
extra touches like the pumpkins, which obviously don't last year round.
But I realized I still have a giant fuzzy spider
on my front porch from last Halloween. So I'm just supplementing.
I have a weizu board welcome Matt that you know,
(08:56):
I bought it Spirit Halloween. But that's just my welcome Matt.
You know, it's easier than plus Halloween rules. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Plus you know I said this in a poem. I
think of coming out, but it's always Halloween in America,
you know it has been for some time.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Think about it, folks. But anyway, so I don't think
too hard. Yeah, yeah, don't depress yourself. But it is accurate.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
So there's this awesome topiary like Hedge May's kind of
thing going on in Hampton Court. A lot of other
people see it, and various different courtiers of William the
Third plants their own topieria at their own country houses,
just like plenty of the younger And we know that
a lot of these have been lost in time. But
(09:45):
we also saw something that happens with any esthetic trend
or fashionable fad. Once too many people are able to
do it, it loses its social utility. That's why so
many other w high faluting fashion houses would get mad
when too many hip hop celebrities liked their stuff, Like
(10:09):
Burberry got mad about that totally.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I mean the scarcity and exclusivity model is key. You know.
That's why I like Supreme. If you go on their website,
there's stuff's always sold out because you have to buy
it in the store. It's the only way. And when
they drop something new, you know, you get it then
or it's gone. And it's actually a pretty decent little
way to make some money flipping that stuff if you
(10:32):
actually live near one of those places there, even if
you're not into the style. Yeah, and this happens with
topiery as well.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
There's a really solid argument the country life folks make
that as topiery became more common, as it became more
of an aesthetic, and increasingly less wealthy people were able
to do something like it, the tide turns against topiery,
especially when a guy named Joseph Addison and launches a
(11:01):
disk track about topiery in his magazine The Spectators Our
British Gardeners, he writes in seventeen twelve, instead of artering nature,
love to deviate from it as much as possible.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Our trees rise.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
And cones, globes and pyramids. We see the marks of
the scissors upon every plant. And for my own part,
I would rather look upon a tree and all its luxuriancy,
not a word and diffusion of bousand branches than when
it is cut thus and trimmed into a mathematical figure.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
So this quote is interesting because like every other word
is capitalized. Yes, it's like a poem or something. It's
very wow, it's like a manifesto. By the way, I
just wanted to add, I think Supreme should make a topiery.
That's a great idea. Yeah, just one.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
I'm looking at their website. One hundred and fifty eight
bucks for a hoodie. Is it's gonna need to be
a little bit more of an impressive hoodie?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I agree, dude. Not to mention if you've ever been
into what's it called Balenciaga. They have one of those
stores at the Mall, one of the fancy malls here
in Atlanta, and I looked at a nondescript gray hoodie
that just says Balenciaga on it in very small script,
one thousand dollars. No, thank you, it's good. It's irritating.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I've been a busy little bit and I've been saving money,
but I end up.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
In a lot of airports. We all do.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
And the thing that gets me especially when you're traveling
through an international airport. Is there are all these extremely
high end stores with the idea that someone's going, Yes,
I saved up for quite a while to fly across
the Pacific, and the first thing I'm gonna do is
impulse purchase a Rolex.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I think it's largely designed for people that are just
money is no object, right, I don't know whim, you know,
I always wonder too about like I think there's probably
a bit in somebody's stand up routine about luggage store
at the airport, Like when does that ever come in hand?
What circumstances would you be in where you'd already at
the airport and need to buy luggage, because even if
you were going to get another one, you'd already how
(13:10):
did you get your stuff there? Maybe you buy it
on the front end because you want to get souvenirs
you're leaving the air and you're leaving, you buy it,
and then you go, okay, we solved it. Mission a
com orre you break your luggage.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
I've only bought luggage at the airport twice, and once
it was because we had to go get stuff, and
then once.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
It was you're in an elite class.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
No luggage, you're in an elite class.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
A bad planning, and I did like it. I no
offense to those folks.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
They're trying to make a living, but there's so many
better places to buy luggage.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I'll tell you one thing that you can't have bad
planning involved with. That's topiary. Yeah, because that'll come back
to haunt you in fact. Yeah. In seventeen thirteen, an
English poet and satirist and Alexander Pope wrote another scathing
article about the excesses of topieri that he felt encapsulated
(14:07):
this kind of rot, you know, in his part of
the world. He goes on to say, quote a citizen
is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews, but
he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants like those
of Guildhall. Any ladies that please may have their own
effigies in myrtle, or their husbands in hornbeam. Imagine horn beam.
(14:31):
He adds, talking about some specific varieties of bush, tree
and shrub. His particular hatred of the quote vergent sculpture. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This was basically a condemnation of the excesses of the
upper crust right.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
One hundred percent and put this put a lot of
the like aspirational the people on the low end of
the upper class. This put them into panic mode because
they were like, holy he smokes or egads, We've spent
so much money hiring.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
This Italian gardener.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
We can only get Giuseppe for you know, a couple
of months out of the year, and now it's not popular.
Now we look out of date and dumb. We look
like squares or cones or pyramids or giants. So this
leads to a slow burned purge of these decorative sculptures.
(15:30):
In the seventeen twenties seventeen thirties, the aristocrats of England
are clearing out. They're paying people rather of course they're
not doing themselves. They're clearing out their gardens. And this
is the dawn of the more natural garden. It's still
very manufactured, but it's meant to look like an idyllic
(15:52):
water side by a creek or something.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Is the idea here that that it's sort of becoming
ghost to flaunt your wealth in this way. In this
way I think so yeah, other flex is totally fine,
fair enough, but like also you never know too it
probably could could make you a bit of a target,
you know what I mean. Like it's like, look at
that house with all the giant, oddly shaped shrubs. Let's
(16:16):
let's break into that place. They probably got some nice stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
They definitely have hedge trimmers if we need those.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
So then it's interesting because then again the cycle repeats,
it reaches a new turn. In the eighteen forties, botanist
and garden writer named John Loudon says, you know, guys,
enough time has passed. I missed Toppiery and he's his
voice is tremendously influential in this circle. And it's funny
(16:47):
because it reminds it reminds me of so many things
that we have all seen in the modern day, especially
with like Twitter, or with Instagram or TikTok. After a
certain number of decades passes, someone will go, only ninety
kids will get this. You guys, I miss cassette tapes.
My question is do you really? Because there's better stuff
(17:10):
out there, you know what I mean, Like records I
think are different because that technology is really solid and
it conveys sound in a different way. But what I'm
saying is nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and
this our buddy John totally tapped in when he hit
the aristocrats with nostalgia, and so people started decorating garden
(17:35):
rooms again. They opened them the estates to the public,
and then within a few years, boom boom boom. Topieri's
back on top maybe.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, I were in eighteen sixty seven. I guess when
you have this kind of shift in, I guess topiery
more like kind of coming back into the forefront as
like an art form, and it has to do with
kind of fascination with a lot of things going on
in Japan, like a lot of the cultural you know,
crafts and practices of the Japanese and at the World's Fair,
(18:08):
this really kind of makes its debut in a way.
The entire continent was basically like Beatlemania, but for Japanese stuff. Yeah,
they became a bunch of wiyaboos. That's exactly right. And
this included things like Japanese gardening, like these zen type
gardens and like the very organic shaped you know, it
(18:29):
wasn't topier. It's almost anti Topieri, right like, because it
was you know, very meticulously trimmed and crafted, but it
was all designed to feel as as natural as possible,
and there are these very precise pruning techniques that the
Japanese gardeners would use, some of which were not that
(18:51):
far off from what we'd seen with some of these
Italian gardens.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Of course, Bonzai is like mini Topieri, right, I love
love Love. I am by no means responsible enough of
a person to take care of a Bondsie tree much less.
You know, honestly, it probably wouldn't buy one either, because
they really dope looking ones are.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Expensive, thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
They're very expensive, especially if they're older, and they're like
a hardwood, you know, so they've got the really tiny leaves.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
And stuff, and they're really temperamental, right, Like, if you're
not taking care of them correctly, you can you can
lose them pretty easily.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
They're sensitive boys. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But it's you
can see how people would have been fascinated with this
in Europe, especially the intentionality of the esthetic, right we're
talking about instead of this huge chaotic growth of stuff,
(19:51):
instead of this abundance of uniform, militaristic chopped trees, there's like,
let's have two trees and let's position them in an
interesting way, with perhaps a water feature and everybody in
Europe loses their minds.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
They're like, this is amazing.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
You know. It's like when the beat drops in an
EDM song. You know what I mean, they are the
best part of the song. It's the way for it,
you know, it's.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
The knock they we're looking for.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
At the same time, literature has embraced this romanticization of
topiary gardens in the past, so you would see like
Lewis Carroll write about secret gardens. You would later see
books like you know, the Secret Garden, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Exactly, and also made its way into you know, the
Greek paintings and the surrealist works of Salvador Dali and Papocasso.
So that's definitely the kind of I mean Picasso obviously,
some of his work is more political work, especially, so
I imagine that the idea of a topiery could also have
(21:05):
significance referencing that kind of elite class you know, of
conquerors you know from the past. But also they're just
freaking weird and they're creepy, and they're like there are
ways to really make them. An excellent feature in any
surrealist kind of work of fiction or horror or just
kind of just you know, something's not quite right. There's
a sense of foreboding. Again, is they used a great
(21:28):
effect in the Stephen King version. I guess, I guess
that movie is so revered in its own right. It
really does feel like that's the Kubrad version. There's the
Stephen King version. It does have topieries that come to
life and like stalk you know, young Danny.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah, And the Stephen King version also has one of
my one of one of the few laugh out loud
parts of the novel where at the end spoiler by
the way for a decade's old novel with multiple film
and TV adaptations three to one spoil toward the end
when the Overlook Hotel is fully possessed the father. The
(22:05):
way that the kid saves the story in the book
is he turns up the gas boiler right, and the
boiler excludes the Overlook. At the very end, when the
Overlook possessing this guy realizes what's going on, he says.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
You doesn't you doesn't like dare not right?
Speaker 1 (22:27):
And I was so deep into this book. I'm again
when I read in this and I'm like, da isn't
a word?
Speaker 2 (22:32):
You know?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
And I asked my dad, and he was like, son,
this will make sense later. But uh, Stephen King does
a lot of drugs, so I didn't know it was
a real word, but I guess it is.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
I think, yeah, I think you might have been in
the thick of his h his uh cocaine days when
he wrote that one.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
It's apparently it's a northern US contraction of dare not
maybe it's transatlantic, but anyway, yes, you're right, this uncanny
valley is. I think Topieri can tap into that. Similar
to when you see a mannequin and you're not expecting it, right,
that's never pleasant. Sure they should stay in department stores.
(23:12):
I'm sorry. It's not like I'm advocating mannequin apartheid, but
if you're not expecting them, they're very strange to.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
See the wild, especially the ones with like the really
creepily narrow wastes, you know, or really elongated necks. And
we know.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Now that you can see topieri in all sorts of places,
especially if you live in a large metro area, like
we just started making plans to go to the Atlanta
Botanical Garden, and we know that today topiery is this
is kind of a happy ending thing. Topiery is a
really cool way of beautifying common spaces.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, I hadn't though about it because I mentioned earlier
that I hadn't really ever seen any topieri, But I
realized now that I certainly have when I went to
Disney World recently. There are quite a few of them
there in the shape of you know, your favorite characters.
Disney brought topiery to America's kind of mainstream with these
trademark trimmed little fellas. Disney actually even developed some portable
(24:15):
topieries by fascinating moss and little shrubs to steal wires,
which was able to give them the support they needed
to create these kind of cutting guides. They all I
had to do is just trim around the cages, much
like those Rosemary contraptions you were talking about earlier.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, and I think there's something so very cool about that.
I would love to go visit the Potactical Garden with
you guys. You know, maybe maybe we can take the
lady friends and the kids. Sure, and I think we can.
Also now we can say we're looking at the world
with different, more topiery sensitive eyes, so you might be
(24:57):
surprised the next time you see a big public event.
The next time you visit a park in your neck
of the Global woods, folks, you might be surprised by
how much Topiery is out there. And we can't wait
to see the most stunning, most extreme, the weirdest example.
So I'm glad we made this a two part episode. Noel,
what about you?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Oh? Totally absolutely, you know. I never would have I
think this may have been my suggestion when we were
talking through potential topics once on one of our like
pitch meetings, and I think it just occurred to me that, like,
there must be some interesting stuff in the history of Topieri's,
and I had no idea it would be this much,
but boy was it ever and huge thanks to research
(25:40):
Associate extraordinariy Zach Williams, who, as always went above and beyond.
There was stuff we couldn't even get to in this
two parter on Topieri's. Big big thanks.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Too, Casey pegrim our super producer man the myth legend, Casey,
I do hope we can make this a regular thing.
Are you gonna help us get the band back together?
Absolutely love to Nice Okay, and big big thanks of
course to Max white Pants Williams. Big thanks to Jonathan
Strickland aka the quizt who I promised Jonathan I would
(26:16):
not publicly mock his hedge phobia, his topiary phobia, and
I do want everybody to know he has one, so
as of course, as always, if you have complaints, send
him to our complaint department, that is Jonathan Strickland at.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Big thanks Chris Frosciotis E's Jeffcoat here in Spirit, Gabe Lucier,
Alex Williams and Nole.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Big thanks to you. Man. I'm excited about the botanical gardener.
Me too, Buddy, me too, and thanks to you as well.
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, is it the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(27:02):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear for the man, the myth,
the legend. He's known around the world for being one
of the best podcast producers and biggest centophiles out there,
also having terrible taste in friends. That's right, Casey Pegram
has joined us once again for part two on the
(00:49):
history of topiary.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Here too, kind Ben, thanks for having me. Here's our guy, Geez.
I don't know, man, we don't really need much preamble here. Well,
I think you're nol I'm bad, that's your part. I
am Still it is a fascinating topic. I don't think
any of us had any idea that there was this
much to discuss about the surprisingly old art of topiery.
(01:12):
So let's just jump right into it. Guys, what do
you say to it? Yes, yes, the French tradition, I
guess kind of reached its peak under what often is
the case the sun king himself. I mean, anytime we
have something that peaks in French history, it's usually because
this dude had something to do with it. This is
quite opulent fellow Louis the fourteenth in the Palace of Versailles,
(01:36):
which was nothing if not maximal, but of course only
had one on one bathroom, one toilet.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
The richest people in France were like, well, I'm gonna
go poop in the yard by the topieri topiary.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, you got to make room for all the topiary.
Were they still using human waste as as fertilizer back then,
because that would makes sense. They were like they just
didn't feel it was that's that's gold, right there, don't
be flushing that down brown gold.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Versailles had these four thousand acre gardens. It's huge. You
can hear us talk about it in the History of restrooms.
And they had very high standards for their for how
these topiary things should be cut. One point nine million
pots were always on hand so that the beds could
(02:26):
be replanted overnight while the king slept and he could
wake up to a surprise the next day. It's just
absolutely indicative of why France had a revolution.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yes, sure, maybe she didn't say let the meat cake,
but the attitude of let the meat cake was pretty pervasive, right.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
One hundred percent, dude. And then if you go across
the channel over to England. You'll see they had something
called the not garden. So they would take a bunch
of herbs and they would tie them together, you know,
like doing a French braid and hair or to like
or rope bridge. And then they had English yu trees
of course because you know it's England, and they would
(03:06):
also clip those down into hedges and grow them out
into mazes. It was very it was very hot.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Time, absolutely, and then we have the Dutch entering the chat.
Who you know, if you've ever been to Amsterdam, unbelievably beautiful, flowerful,
you know, fields like gardens really just it's like everywhere. Honestly,
there's a there's a Mario Kart level for Amsterdam that
was recently added and it is just chock full of
(03:33):
windmills and tulips. But yeah, the Dutch really got a
got a taste for gardening. But also we know, if
you know anything about Amsterdam, you know that it's it's
it's a very packed kind of metro type city. So
space is really precious, so they had to figure out
ways to maximize space, and in order to do that,
(03:54):
they got mega precise micro with their calculations for these gardens,
and they also, surprise, surprise, were super into topiary. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
The thing is so the Netherlands now, you know, Amsterdam
is a very old, very heavily developed city and if
you go out, you know, there really are these picturesque
tulip fields and windmills and all that.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
And they were always as a country struggling with space
in the days of their maritime trade empire. They had
a very different take on topiery and ornamental gardens in
general because they had simply encountered many new species of
plant life, and so they were able to flex super
(04:43):
duper hard on this. And you could go to a garden,
a Dutch garden, and you would see plants and flowers
that you couldn't see anywhere else in Europe, at least
at this time. And so the well to do in
England start picking and choosing the kind of stuff they
want to emulate. So they're like, okay, we're gonna we
(05:04):
like the uniformity, the grand duel of the French style.
We also love, we're in love with these Dutch strong
geometric patterns, and we want to get you know, maybe
one day we can get some of those fancy tulips.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
But this is still like the era.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Of humanity where you would rent a pineapple to impress
people at a party.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
So maybe they didn't get the tulips, but they wanted
to look like. They wanted people to look at their
gardens and say, oh, they know about the Netherlands.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
That's right. Yeah, and we you know, we certainly have
parallels to that. Oh in society, people living above their
means or you know, having some sort of thing that
there's a status symbol or whatever that might be adorning
their their home or their clothing or whatever it might be. Yeah, sure, exactly.
So look at me, I'm a fancy guy, even though
(05:53):
maybe you're living check to check, it's it's it's it's
a it's a pretty tough situation. There's that fancy guy.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
He's that fancy guy with that wristwatch and a phone
he could tell time twice.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And the default mortgage.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Right, So yeah, we see that this, you know, this
race to acquire social status via topierian specific is to
your point, noal, It is a microcosmic example of the
larger human urge across culture to impress people based on
(06:28):
your material possessions and it should not be a surprise
that the Tudors embrace topiary, and Henry the Eighth says,
I'm gonna go to the Romans.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
He goes.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
He hires some Italian gardeners to transform Hampton Court. He
gets real deal Italian landscapers. And when a German writer
named Thomas Platter visits Hampton Court during the reign of
Elizabeth I, he goes nuts. We've even got a quote
from him. He was really impressed. I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
He had to say that he beheld all manner of shapes,
men and women, half men and half horse, sirens serving
maids with baskets, French lilies and delicate crenelations. That's a
great word, all true to the life, and so cleverly
and amusingly interwoven, mingled and grown together, trimmed and arranged
(07:22):
picture wise that their equal would be difficult to find. Beautiful.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah. Oh, plus he's also he's a writer, so he's
pretty talented at that.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
But okay, that's how he talked too, I did it.
That was a perfect impression. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
We based that on YouTube recordings from his vlog. So
William the Third introduces the Dutch style and then he
is the guy who commissions the Hampton Court Maze. Around
seventeen hundred, they built this. Beat me here, Casey, they
build this big maze, and it's like a hearts and
minds thing. It's to impress company, you know, folks to
(07:58):
pay are where he grew up up in the US,
your parents might have done something similar, like a small
version of this is the guest bathroom has the decorative
soap that no one can touch, or the decorative hand towels.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah right, right, right, Oh man. I always get so irritated.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
I get it. I love festivity. I like commemorating occasions,
but it always irritated me as a utilitarian and a
minimalist to know that there was this entire part of
a hall closet that was like, we only put this
stuff out during Halloween or Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
This is the you know, end of the year stuff.
I've just converted to like a Halloween house. So I
just keep my decorations up all year. I add little
extra touches like the pumpkins, which obviously don't last year round.
But I realized I still have a giant fuzzy spider
on my front porch from last Halloween. So I'm just supplementing.
I have a weizu board welcome Matt that you know,
(08:56):
I bought it Spirit Halloween. But that's just my welcome Matt.
You know, it's easier than plus Halloween rules. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Plus you know I said this in a poem. I
think of coming out, but it's always Halloween in America,
you know it has been for some time.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Think about it, folks. But anyway, so I don't think
too hard. Yeah, yeah, don't depress yourself. But it is accurate.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
So there's this awesome topiary like Hedge May's kind of
thing going on in Hampton Court. A lot of other
people see it, and various different courtiers of William the
Third plants their own topieria at their own country houses,
just like plenty of the younger And we know that
a lot of these have been lost in time. But
(09:45):
we also saw something that happens with any esthetic trend
or fashionable fad. Once too many people are able to
do it, it loses its social utility. That's why so
many other w high faluting fashion houses would get mad
when too many hip hop celebrities liked their stuff, Like
(10:09):
Burberry got mad about that totally.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I mean the scarcity and exclusivity model is key. You know.
That's why I like Supreme. If you go on their website,
there's stuff's always sold out because you have to buy
it in the store. It's the only way. And when
they drop something new, you know, you get it then
or it's gone. And it's actually a pretty decent little
way to make some money flipping that stuff if you
(10:32):
actually live near one of those places there, even if
you're not into the style. Yeah, and this happens with
topiery as well.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
There's a really solid argument the country life folks make
that as topiery became more common, as it became more
of an aesthetic, and increasingly less wealthy people were able
to do something like it, the tide turns against topiery,
especially when a guy named Joseph Addison and launches a
(11:01):
disk track about topiery in his magazine The Spectators Our
British Gardeners, he writes in seventeen twelve, instead of artering nature,
love to deviate from it as much as possible.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Our trees rise.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
And cones, globes and pyramids. We see the marks of
the scissors upon every plant. And for my own part,
I would rather look upon a tree and all its luxuriancy,
not a word and diffusion of bousand branches than when
it is cut thus and trimmed into a mathematical figure.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
So this quote is interesting because like every other word
is capitalized. Yes, it's like a poem or something. It's
very wow, it's like a manifesto. By the way, I
just wanted to add, I think Supreme should make a topiery.
That's a great idea. Yeah, just one.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
I'm looking at their website. One hundred and fifty eight
bucks for a hoodie. Is it's gonna need to be
a little bit more of an impressive hoodie?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I agree, dude. Not to mention if you've ever been
into what's it called Balenciaga. They have one of those
stores at the Mall, one of the fancy malls here
in Atlanta, and I looked at a nondescript gray hoodie
that just says Balenciaga on it in very small script,
one thousand dollars. No, thank you, it's good. It's irritating.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I've been a busy little bit and I've been saving money,
but I end up.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
In a lot of airports. We all do.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
And the thing that gets me especially when you're traveling
through an international airport. Is there are all these extremely
high end stores with the idea that someone's going, Yes,
I saved up for quite a while to fly across
the Pacific, and the first thing I'm gonna do is
impulse purchase a Rolex.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I think it's largely designed for people that are just
money is no object, right, I don't know whim, you know,
I always wonder too about like I think there's probably
a bit in somebody's stand up routine about luggage store
at the airport, Like when does that ever come in hand?
What circumstances would you be in where you'd already at
the airport and need to buy luggage, because even if
you were going to get another one, you'd already how
(13:10):
did you get your stuff there? Maybe you buy it
on the front end because you want to get souvenirs
you're leaving the air and you're leaving, you buy it,
and then you go, okay, we solved it. Mission a
com orre you break your luggage.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
I've only bought luggage at the airport twice, and once
it was because we had to go get stuff, and
then once.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
It was you're in an elite class.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
No luggage, you're in an elite class.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
A bad planning, and I did like it. I no
offense to those folks.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
They're trying to make a living, but there's so many
better places to buy luggage.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I'll tell you one thing that you can't have bad
planning involved with. That's topiary. Yeah, because that'll come back
to haunt you in fact. Yeah. In seventeen thirteen, an
English poet and satirist and Alexander Pope wrote another scathing
article about the excesses of topieri that he felt encapsulated
(14:07):
this kind of rot, you know, in his part of
the world. He goes on to say, quote a citizen
is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews, but
he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants like those
of Guildhall. Any ladies that please may have their own
effigies in myrtle, or their husbands in hornbeam. Imagine horn beam.
(14:31):
He adds, talking about some specific varieties of bush, tree
and shrub. His particular hatred of the quote vergent sculpture. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This was basically a condemnation of the excesses of the
upper crust right.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
One hundred percent and put this put a lot of
the like aspirational the people on the low end of
the upper class. This put them into panic mode because
they were like, holy he smokes or egads, We've spent
so much money hiring.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
This Italian gardener.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
We can only get Giuseppe for you know, a couple
of months out of the year, and now it's not popular.
Now we look out of date and dumb. We look
like squares or cones or pyramids or giants. So this
leads to a slow burned purge of these decorative sculptures.
(15:30):
In the seventeen twenties seventeen thirties, the aristocrats of England
are clearing out. They're paying people rather of course they're
not doing themselves. They're clearing out their gardens. And this
is the dawn of the more natural garden. It's still
very manufactured, but it's meant to look like an idyllic
(15:52):
water side by a creek or something.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Is the idea here that that it's sort of becoming
ghost to flaunt your wealth in this way. In this
way I think so yeah, other flex is totally fine,
fair enough, but like also you never know too it
probably could could make you a bit of a target,
you know what I mean. Like it's like, look at
that house with all the giant, oddly shaped shrubs. Let's
(16:16):
let's break into that place. They probably got some nice stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
They definitely have hedge trimmers if we need those.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
So then it's interesting because then again the cycle repeats,
it reaches a new turn. In the eighteen forties, botanist
and garden writer named John Loudon says, you know, guys,
enough time has passed. I missed Toppiery and he's his
voice is tremendously influential in this circle. And it's funny
(16:47):
because it reminds it reminds me of so many things
that we have all seen in the modern day, especially
with like Twitter, or with Instagram or TikTok. After a
certain number of decades passes, someone will go, only ninety
kids will get this. You guys, I miss cassette tapes.
My question is do you really? Because there's better stuff
(17:10):
out there, you know what I mean, Like records I
think are different because that technology is really solid and
it conveys sound in a different way. But what I'm
saying is nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and
this our buddy John totally tapped in when he hit
the aristocrats with nostalgia, and so people started decorating garden
(17:35):
rooms again. They opened them the estates to the public,
and then within a few years, boom boom boom. Topieri's
back on top maybe.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, I were in eighteen sixty seven. I guess when
you have this kind of shift in, I guess topiery
more like kind of coming back into the forefront as
like an art form, and it has to do with
kind of fascination with a lot of things going on
in Japan, like a lot of the cultural you know,
crafts and practices of the Japanese and at the World's Fair,
(18:08):
this really kind of makes its debut in a way.
The entire continent was basically like Beatlemania, but for Japanese stuff. Yeah,
they became a bunch of wiyaboos. That's exactly right. And
this included things like Japanese gardening, like these zen type
gardens and like the very organic shaped you know, it
(18:29):
wasn't topier. It's almost anti Topieri, right like, because it
was you know, very meticulously trimmed and crafted, but it
was all designed to feel as as natural as possible,
and there are these very precise pruning techniques that the
Japanese gardeners would use, some of which were not that
(18:51):
far off from what we'd seen with some of these
Italian gardens.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Of course, Bonzai is like mini Topieri, right, I love
love Love. I am by no means responsible enough of
a person to take care of a Bondsie tree much less.
You know, honestly, it probably wouldn't buy one either, because
they really dope looking ones are.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Expensive, thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
They're very expensive, especially if they're older, and they're like
a hardwood, you know, so they've got the really tiny leaves.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
And stuff, and they're really temperamental, right, Like, if you're
not taking care of them correctly, you can you can
lose them pretty easily.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
They're sensitive boys. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But it's you
can see how people would have been fascinated with this
in Europe, especially the intentionality of the esthetic, right we're
talking about instead of this huge chaotic growth of stuff,
(19:51):
instead of this abundance of uniform, militaristic chopped trees, there's like,
let's have two trees and let's position them in an
interesting way, with perhaps a water feature and everybody in
Europe loses their minds.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
They're like, this is amazing.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
You know. It's like when the beat drops in an
EDM song. You know what I mean, they are the
best part of the song. It's the way for it,
you know, it's.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
The knock they we're looking for.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
At the same time, literature has embraced this romanticization of
topiary gardens in the past, so you would see like
Lewis Carroll write about secret gardens. You would later see
books like you know, the Secret Garden, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Exactly, and also made its way into you know, the
Greek paintings and the surrealist works of Salvador Dali and Papocasso.
So that's definitely the kind of I mean Picasso obviously,
some of his work is more political work, especially, so
I imagine that the idea of a topiery could also have
(21:05):
significance referencing that kind of elite class you know, of
conquerors you know from the past. But also they're just
freaking weird and they're creepy, and they're like there are
ways to really make them. An excellent feature in any
surrealist kind of work of fiction or horror or just
kind of just you know, something's not quite right. There's
a sense of foreboding. Again, is they used a great
(21:28):
effect in the Stephen King version. I guess, I guess
that movie is so revered in its own right. It
really does feel like that's the Kubrad version. There's the
Stephen King version. It does have topieries that come to
life and like stalk you know, young Danny.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah, And the Stephen King version also has one of
my one of one of the few laugh out loud
parts of the novel where at the end spoiler by
the way for a decade's old novel with multiple film
and TV adaptations three to one spoil toward the end
when the Overlook Hotel is fully possessed the father. The
(22:05):
way that the kid saves the story in the book
is he turns up the gas boiler right, and the
boiler excludes the Overlook. At the very end, when the
Overlook possessing this guy realizes what's going on, he says.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
You doesn't you doesn't like dare not right?
Speaker 1 (22:27):
And I was so deep into this book. I'm again
when I read in this and I'm like, da isn't
a word?
Speaker 2 (22:32):
You know?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
And I asked my dad, and he was like, son,
this will make sense later. But uh, Stephen King does
a lot of drugs, so I didn't know it was
a real word, but I guess it is.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
I think, yeah, I think you might have been in
the thick of his h his uh cocaine days when
he wrote that one.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
It's apparently it's a northern US contraction of dare not
maybe it's transatlantic, but anyway, yes, you're right, this uncanny
valley is. I think Topieri can tap into that. Similar
to when you see a mannequin and you're not expecting it, right,
that's never pleasant. Sure they should stay in department stores.
(23:12):
I'm sorry. It's not like I'm advocating mannequin apartheid, but
if you're not expecting them, they're very strange to.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
See the wild, especially the ones with like the really
creepily narrow wastes, you know, or really elongated necks. And
we know.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Now that you can see topieri in all sorts of places,
especially if you live in a large metro area, like
we just started making plans to go to the Atlanta
Botanical Garden, and we know that today topiery is this
is kind of a happy ending thing. Topiery is a
really cool way of beautifying common spaces.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, I hadn't though about it because I mentioned earlier
that I hadn't really ever seen any topieri, But I
realized now that I certainly have when I went to
Disney World recently. There are quite a few of them
there in the shape of you know, your favorite characters.
Disney brought topiery to America's kind of mainstream with these
trademark trimmed little fellas. Disney actually even developed some portable
(24:15):
topieries by fascinating moss and little shrubs to steal wires,
which was able to give them the support they needed
to create these kind of cutting guides. They all I
had to do is just trim around the cages, much
like those Rosemary contraptions you were talking about earlier.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, and I think there's something so very cool about that.
I would love to go visit the Potactical Garden with
you guys. You know, maybe maybe we can take the
lady friends and the kids. Sure, and I think we can.
Also now we can say we're looking at the world
with different, more topiery sensitive eyes, so you might be
(24:57):
surprised the next time you see a big public event.
The next time you visit a park in your neck
of the Global woods, folks, you might be surprised by
how much Topiery is out there. And we can't wait
to see the most stunning, most extreme, the weirdest example.
So I'm glad we made this a two part episode. Noel,
what about you?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Oh? Totally absolutely, you know. I never would have I
think this may have been my suggestion when we were
talking through potential topics once on one of our like
pitch meetings, and I think it just occurred to me that, like,
there must be some interesting stuff in the history of Topieri's,
and I had no idea it would be this much,
but boy was it ever and huge thanks to research
(25:40):
Associate extraordinariy Zach Williams, who, as always went above and beyond.
There was stuff we couldn't even get to in this
two parter on Topieri's. Big big thanks.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Too, Casey pegrim our super producer man the myth legend, Casey,
I do hope we can make this a regular thing.
Are you gonna help us get the band back together?
Absolutely love to Nice Okay, and big big thanks of
course to Max white Pants Williams. Big thanks to Jonathan
Strickland aka the quizt who I promised Jonathan I would
(26:16):
not publicly mock his hedge phobia, his topiary phobia, and
I do want everybody to know he has one, so
as of course, as always, if you have complaints, send
him to our complaint department, that is Jonathan Strickland at.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Big thanks Chris Frosciotis E's Jeffcoat here in Spirit, Gabe Lucier,
Alex Williams and Nole.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Big thanks to you. Man. I'm excited about the botanical gardener.
Me too, Buddy, me too, and thanks to you as well.
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, is it the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(27:02):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History News
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