Why a Londoner named Bushe made it his mission to turn his neighbours’ hedges into works of art

London — On a dead-end street in London’s Islington neighborhood, CBS News found Tim Bushe trimming his hedge. It was a typical scene in the terraced neighborhood until you stepped back to admire the scale of the carefully trimmed topiary — in the shape of a giant locomotive.

“Philippa, my wife, used to sit in the living room and look out the window and ask me to cut a cat,” Bushe told CBS News, briefly setting down his clippers. To him, they’re as much an artist’s paintbrush as a gardening tool.

Philippa Bushe chose the train instead. That was more than 15 years ago. Shortly afterwards, Bushe decided to help her neighbour, who was struggling to trim his hedge across the road. It was Philippa’s idea, he said.

“Then I gave her the cat she first asked for,” he said.

The couple met as teenagers at art school and were together for 47 years before Philippa died of breast cancer about seven years ago. Bushe, who works as an architect when he is not busy trimming hedges, has continued to practice topiary in honour of his wife, who gave him the idea.

“This is his legacy,” he said.

The father of three has transformed the hedges around his house into elephants, fish, hippos, squirrels. There is even a recreation of the late British sculptor Henry Moore’s “Reclining Nude.” It sits proudly outside Polly Barker’s house. She is a member of the choir with Bushe.

“I was a little worried that the neighbors would be offended, because she’s very, you know, very involved, but they didn’t complain,” Barker said, adding: “We’re now a tourist attraction on Google Maps. We have a little cachet.”

But the hedges aren’t just tourist attractions. With each commission, Bushe raises money for various charities, many of them environmental. Her first assignment was to raise money for an organisation that cares for her sister.

“My younger sister has Down’s syndrome and I decided to raise money for her carers in Kent,” he said. “I raised about £10,000, or about $13,000, for her.”

Bushe says that when he picks up his gardening tools to make an art piece, he lets his medium guide his hand: “I find the shape in the hedge.”

His wife Philippa was also an artist and his muse.

“If she were alive today, she would be fascinated, I think, by how she took off,” he told CBS News, adding that he intended to keep going “until I fall off my ladder.”

Bushe said he loves seeing the results of his hobby make people smile, and he acknowledged the coincidence that his name so accurately references his passion — but he said that to him it feels less like coincidence and more like fate.