How to Create a Topiary Frame with Chicken Wire

Not everyone's terrace needs an angel, a leafy green cat with a long tail, or a year-round perfect Christmas tree, but such a piece of charming whimsy will complete your decor. And, the great news is you can create it from simple materials at home. Homemade topiary takes a little practice, but it rewards you with a long-lived, green, growing sculpture that requires only watering and an occasional snip to maintain.

Things You'll Need

• Small-gauge chicken or poultry netting, 4 to 6 feet by 24 inches
• Work gloves
• Wire cutters, tin shears or pliers
• Small or needle-nose pliers
• Small and large wooden spoons
• Object(s) to mold chicken wire around
• Large lamp-base or cookie jar
• Middle-sized rubber ball
• Garden hose
• 1 or 2 ping-pong balls
• Garden twist-ties
• 3 3-foot green sticks or short tomato stakes
• 1 to 3 packages Spanish moss
• 8-inch or larger flower pot
• Potting soil
• 6-8 small ivy or other small-leaved vine or creepers (not annuals)
• Watering can
• Spray-mister bottle
• Liquid plant food
• Small garden clippers or scissors

Instructions

Building your frame

1. Locate, if possible, a object you can use as a mold for your first topiary. A garden statue is ideal, but you may also find ordinary household objects that, used together, meet your needs. A large, oval lamp base and a middle-sized rubber ball, for instance, could get you started on an owl, a rabbit or a cat. Whatever object(s) you use as molds should be durable enough for you to wrap in chicken wire and scratch proof to let you slide the chicken-wire on and off without damage.

2. Cut chicken wire in pieces large enough to wrap the lamp base (body), the rubber ball (head), the ping pong ball (twice--front paws) and 1 to 2 feet of garden hose (tail). Cut out two triangles for ears or squeeze two pinches in the top of the head.

3. Wrap pieces around the objects, with a 1- to 2-inch overlap, pressing hard to shape with your gloves. Ease each molded piece of chicken wire off its object and secure overlaps with short lengths of garden twist tie. (Use the same technique to secure head to body, ears, front paws and tail.) Omit fine details like eyes, but use your wooden spoons if you want a slightly cattier shape to your cat's head. Press spoon end or handle against one side of wire and your hand against the other side to shape.

4. Run two to three green stakes through your finished frame, bottom to top. Bottoms of stakes should protrude at least 6 inches, because they will secure your frame in the plant soil. Tops can be trimmed when your project is finished so they barely show--ivy or other vine will cover the tips as it grows.

5. Fill finished frame with Spanish moss. This provides a source of moisture to your growing plants in addition to water you put in the soil. The ears will be fine without, but remember to fill the tail.

Assembling Your Topiary

1. Fill pot or planter with soil and water until thoroughly damp. Plant your ivy or small-leaved vines/creepers. Insert moss- and stick-filled frame into pot, easing plants gently aside if needed. Adjust sticks if needed to anchor frame.

2. Spray Spanish moss with mister until thoroughly damp. Plan to keep moss damp on a regular basis. Climbing and creeping plants form small roots as they travel. Keeping these roots moist encourages growth, and it is better than watering just the major roots planted in soil.

3. Gently weave plant tendrils through chicken wire. This is a process you will repeat frequently as your plants grow. Tender stems break less if you pull, rather than push, them through wire. Avoid waiting until stems become woody. A leaf at a time may seem tedious, but it's the best way to encourage overall growth.

4. Provide plant food, per directions, on a regular basis.

Tips & Warnings

• If your topiary shows lopsided growth, it may be because one side gets more light than the other. Rotating the pot regularly should even out growth.