While formal gardens are not exactly the lowest of maintenance, they do give an orderly, symmetrical and artistic look to the landscape. Many wonderful designs can mix the elements of formality such as straight lines with modern garden styles using low maintenance plants. A boxwood for example, may be grown as a tightly clipped hedge or a natural looking woodland evergreen depending on how we prune it. When selecting plants that will need to be pruned to create a globe shape, we select slow growing compact varieties to reduce maintenance costs.