I wasn’t new to topiary.

So, yep, I did it.  And I still can’t believe it.

I created a living sculpture for my garden from this old victorian love seat.  In all, it took me about a month before it was ready to set out in the garden, and about 2 or more months for the cuttings to get established and start to green up and grow.  Lots of pinning, sewing, pinching, and watering went into this neighborhood landmark.

Wanna know how to give your couch a hair cut?

what is the Best Way to Trim Sedum?

This has been my weapon of choice for tackling the job of trimming my topiary couch for the last 6 years. It was a  Mothers Day gift to me from my husband, Tim, also a horticulturist, and my two boys.  They know me so well!  It sure beat having to pinch all of those sedum tips by hand!  Although, my youngest son sure enjoyed pinching the tips and seeing how high he could throw them at the window behind the couch!  Ahhhh…..memories.

What is the best way to weave fishing line throughout your topiary?

If you want to be able to attach the wildlife netting to the couch, you need a heavy duty needle. Luckily, I found one of my mom’s old upholstery needles from an old sewing kit. It was essential in shaping the netting around the couch to duplicate the victorian look. Had I not done this, the couch would have looked much more like a big blob!

Fishing line is your friend when it comes to topiary.  It is see through, so it is invisible, which makes your project look nicer, especially in the beginning stages when all your little cuttings are just getting started.  The only thing you have to worry about, if it’s a long term project meant to last for multiple seasons, is that any fishing line exposed to direct sunlight, can break down over time and lose strength.

So this is what I mean by wildlife netting.  It comes in a seven feet by 100 feet long roll.  It was the perfect width for my love seat.  Easy to cut into pieces for smaller projects too!  If you click the link, you will see there are many brands at different prices…I just chose this one because it had the best picture to explain what it looks like.

So to the right, you see a giant straw colored blobby bale?This is long fibered sphagnum moss.  It is the key ingredient for most topiary projects.  I used a bale this size, 22 lbs, to cover my couch with a 4 inch thick layer of it.  It has the ability to soak up a hunormous amount of water, which makes it ideal for getting plant cuttings established…like a few pounds of sedum spread out over a couch!

This glob of silver shiny stuff is a glob of what we topiary folks call greening pins.  I used them to place cuttings in the vertical sections of the couch.  I could only sew in so much of the netting with the fishing line, so this is what I use in between!  I would lay the sedum cutting horizontally  underneath the wildlife netting, and then carefully pin it in place with one of these.  Using the pins helped the cutting to maintain contact with the moss…essential for getting roots started.  Once the topiary got to growing, I was able to lay cuttings over the top of the netting, and use these pins to hold them in place too.

It’s now 2017, and I have a problem…

What should I do?

Consider it a good ride, and call it the end of an era?  Try to harvest some honey?  I wonder if we would have some tasty honey as we have so many varieties of flowers in our garden.  Spray the poor bees and keep the couch?  Spray the bees and send the couch to the landfill?  Just wait till a frost freezes out the bees and then decide?

Update: October 9, 2017

Holy cow, there is a honey thief among us!  Something broke into the back side of my topiary couch to get to the honey!  There is now a 10 inch diameter hole in the back side, and the remnants of a bee hive!  Yikes!  I feel sorry for whatever creature stirred up that bees’ nest.  I am slightly jealous though, because I bet that honey was deeeeeeevine!