From: lynx@surrey.amigans.gen.nz (Lynsey Gedye)
Newsgroups: rec.gardens
Subject: Re:  topiary and other garden decorations - long answer
Date: 6 Jan 93 23:05:55 GMT-12
Distribution: world
Organization: Prime Line, Wanganui, New Zealand

>In article <1992Dec17.154548.337@math.ucla.edu> ramirez@julia.math.ucla.edu (Alice Ramirez) writes:
>(no bird baths... too many feral cats around)
  ...See also rec.hunting =;)

>I find this sudden letch for schlock difficult to reconcile with my BFA
>degree, but there you are.  Collapse of taste can creep up on any of
>us..... However, I am still trying to maintain some standards.

  A sudden raise in taste can creep up just as mercilessly. =;)

  Pink flamingos?  Sounds Divine!

  With a BFA you ask us how to do garden sculpture?  That's what I call
  trust!  Ok, Alice, your wish is my command...

  The best place to start, IMHO, is with the ready-made.  Now you could
  go the way of all flesh - gnomes etc - side bar here - in Auckland
  over xmas someone's gnome came home after having been on a world tour.
  Yep, the gnome sent home postcards and even a photo taken with Cliff
  Richards (who looked much younger than the gnome I must add).  Who said
  statuary need live a boring life - after all it comes alive at midnight
  while we're all asleep.

  Right?  Course it does!

  Anyway, the ready-made.  Garden centre bits of old cement.  Sex appeal
  of a car accident.  No, Alice, go for the REAL ready-made.  You know
  what I mean - the bottle drying rack, bike wheel on the stool, go wild,
  have the first garden on your block with a urinal in the front yard!
  I've seen old toilets used as planters - much more stylish than some
  cheap asian imported planter.  I live to see an avocado w.c. used as a
  planter for an avocado.  Go Duchamp, go.

  One of the local pet shops uses an old ceramic hand basin and old bath 
  as a waterfall and pond for displaying/selling goldfish.  The water is
  pumped and fed in back via the taps.  If you set up similar, blocked the
  w.c., maybe you could establish an outdoor bathroom, and grow irises
  or papyrus in the w.c.  Gives new meaning to the word "bog".  Wait, no,
  new thought - grow sphagnum in the w.c. - along with venus fly traps!
  And of course bidets - what are they for except watering ferns?

  My personal favorite ready-made is the good ole cow pelvis.  The best
  ones I've found have lichens and mosses growing on them, and they work
  as sculpture hanging on walls or on a plinth say a nice industrial
  terracotta pipe.  Dali used to have elephant skulls, a nice, horned
  animal skull wouldn't go astray either.  O'keefe would approve.

  It's possible to carve bricks - soak them for several days and then
  rip into them with wood working chisels - I've used an axe - no, not
  in swing mode, but holding the head and slicing off the parts that
  didn't look like what I wanted.  If you didn't want a small hand
  sculpture, glue bricks together, or use a fine grain morter.  Bricks
  can also be sandblasted (as can wood) to good effect.  The finished
  brick sculpture could be stood on a plinth; again of terracotta pipe
  or upturned flower pot.  If you want to quickly achieve the lived
  in look - mossy covering, paint the terracotta with a couple of coats
  of natural yoghurt.

  Alice, need I point out your geographical location?  La-la land?
  Get out on the streets, steal half a dozen cars, and bury them in
  your front yard.  I know it's been done before, but this time blame
  it on your neighbourhood dogs.  "It's that poodle over at number 10.
  Not only does it chase cars, but when it catches them it brings them
  home and buries them in my front yard for later!"

  The fastest method I've used for topiary (and also the lowest 
  maintenance - important factor) involved building a shape out of
  chicken wire, stuffing it full of sphagnum, and then growing tiny
  cuttings of the finest leaved ivy I could find.  The cuttings were
  rooted by laying sprays of ivy on sand filled trays.  Each node
  sprouted leaves and roots.  I cut between the nodes and stuffed 'em
  into the moss.  The moss must be kept damp - once it dries it's 
  hard to re-wet quickly.  For a big shape, moss the edges (like skin)
  and the fill the centre with potting or whatever mix.  Watch the
  weight - wet mix/moss is heavy.  I'd tend to stick to bold, simple
  shapes - the ivy still tends to have the old large leaf which stops
  using detailed work.  You could also use Helixine - Baby's Tears
  we call it here - available in green green, yellow green, and blue
  green.  With a bit of planning, some mini engineering (steal some
  steel rods from a building site) you'd be able to make some pretty
  neat Henry Moore type topiary that's mostly low maintenance.  For
  a big work I'd build in some trickle irrigation for convenience.
  You could run a hose into the trunk of the topiary elephant - ideal
  for the next garden party of unsuspecting matrons =;)!

  Speaking of such basic things, there's this neat sculpture park in
  Oslo.  The ideal time to visit is in the rain, where, when you get
  bored with things of a viking nature, you can be entertained by 
  the movement of water off bodies.  Vigeland from memory.

  If you want to do really big topiary and don't want to weld, why
  not use pressure treated timber?  Bolt/nail with galvanised hardware,
  chicken wire - use a chainsaw or hand saw to trim off offending bits,
  low tech, and light to handle.

  Puff, pant, I'm nearly done.

  If you do decide to make a large topiary, perhaps you might like to
  make one in my likeness.  I modestly propose that while topiary in
  the shape of the human figure is ok, in the shape of *my* figure
  would be simply outstanding.  I could send you photos, but if you go
  to any good art book and look up A for Adonis or D for (Michaelangelo's)
  David you'll get the general idea.

  I do have one physical attribute that is -larger- than most and you
  should include it in all its grandeur.  Women lust after it, men
  are envious of it.  When I go to the beach, well you get the idea...
  women comment excitedly on the thickness and length and it's all I
  can do to keep their hands off it.

  Yes, people everywhere want luxuriant eyebrows that meet in the middle!


  =|:)!




--
           lynx@surrey.amigans.gen.nz    lynx@amigans.gen.nz
Newsgroups: rec.gardens