My niece Meagan recently sent me photos of topiaries from Disney. While these may be a little extreme for our home gardens, creating a simple topiary is an interesting way to add some whimsy to your landscape.

There are many forms of topiary dating back to the 16th century, but two easy types for you to try are the 2- or 3-dimensional wire frames. While there are many ready-made frames to purchase, you can easily construct your own. Wire is the most versatile material to use. This could be copper-coated, galvanized or plastic-coated. Wire is available in different gauges, or thickness, with 10- or 12-gauge used for most frames.

Raid your toolbox for a good pair of wire cutters for cutting your pieces of wire. Needle-nosed pliers for shaping, griping and twisting wire to create your frame. Spool wire for tying off / together thicker pieces of wire and for filling in on wire frames to give extra support. Hammer and nails to make a form on which your design can be copied. Small mesh chicken wire for filling hollow 2/3-dimensional shapes.

Planting a 2-dimensional frame is as easy as wrapping your pliable stems around your shape, be it a heart, butterfly or star. A variation is the 3-dimensional where you fill in with spool wire to add more growing space. The “stuffed” 3-dimensional frame is where you fill in your form with dampened sphagnum moss tightly wrapped with fishing line to create a planting base.

Selecting your plants depends on the type of topiary you are creating.

Mixing different kinds of plants can give your topiary a textured appearance. Ivy is an excellent choice for hollow topiary as are jasmine, creeping rosemary and creeping fig to name a few. For “stuffed” creations baby’s tears, pennyroyal and thyme are a few. You can use one plant, but using several small ones will allow you to have shorter growth time and if one plant dies (it happens!) stems from the other plants can cover the bare patch.

Care and feeding of your topiary require good light, temperature, air circulation, watering and feeding. It’s important to give “stuffed” good air circulation so you don’t develop fungal problems. Frequent misting will raise humidity. Water those planted in a pot when the soil dries out. Those planted in the form will enjoy fertilized soaking in your sink allowing them to sit for a few minutes to drain. Once a month feed with a balanced water-soluble fertilizer withholding late fall or early winter.

Grooming is an important step to allow new growth to replace old leaves. Removing sections that have become woody or bare and then training new growth to fill in areas will keep your topiary fresh. If you notice insects’ control with use of an insecticidal soap, correct fungal problems by changing growing conditions or drenching leaves and roots with a fungicide solution.

There are many resource books to further research topiaries, with many showing you patterns to create your own masterpiece, or you can come learn with us! Our June Garden Art Series will be making a topiary turtle. This is a new class so we’ll see how many versions of turtles will make Mahoning County their new home!

To learn how to get started with topiaries, go to: https://go.osu.edu/topiaries.

To learn more about the class, go to https://go.osu.edu/topiaryturtle06-12.

Baytos is an Ohio State University Extension Master Gardener Volunteer in Mahoning County.