It’s been a long time since I’ve clipped nice Portuguese laurel standards - they used to great great ones in from Italy at Architectural Plants, where we called them fungi and spent ages getting them into matching pairs. What I like about them, especially the smaller leafed (myrtifolia?) variety, is they grow in a way that tells you where to clip, kind of join the dots. Something about the growth flush leaves a subliminal gap for the shears to follow.