SS--YES! In that link--they are definitely pruned. You are correct!
IF someone wants a garden like that--the labor is intensive.
Any of the Chinese or Japanese Hollies that are used as hedges
and look like Boxwoods can be pruned any way you want. They just keep growing.
The dwarf Euonomous bushes take to pruning as well. There are some in the link--
the yellow ones
I suppose it takes a few years for them to start growing in a round shape--
but will require shaping to look as good as those do.
In that sense--they are close to topiaries.
Something like a "Bird's nest Spruce" grows very low, very rounded and compact.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Birds+Nest+spruce&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
G.
Your next plant adventure will be...
That is really cool (though too artificial in the end for something I would live with) but I feel sure they have to be pruned heavily. I cannot imagine a plant naturally growing that tight.
All I know is my Korean boxwood of 4-5 years is still very neat and slow growing and round-ed. It would be a good choice to try. I have only given it a bare shave two times with shears. But it isn't that flat sheared ball look.
It's pretty but doesn't look real. Must be enhanced colors.
Hm, I might try lightly pruning a variegated boxwood.
My latest adventure is a False aralia/ Dizygotheca elegeantissima. As I feared, within a month I did something that made two of the three stems go on permanent wilt! I overwatered. It came in a very peaty mix, I think they thrive in the greenhouse with drip irrigation, and then it was perfectly happy at home in that moisture holding mix, until it got dry enough to wilt and I drowned it. What a rookie move.
Lady palm sounds like a great indoor plant- if I ever run across one cheap- palmbob of course writes about them.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1770/