Grow a topiary valentine - instructions for making vine-and-frame topiary for Valentine's Day

Flower & Garden Magazine, Dec-Jan, 1994 by Kay Melchisedech Olson

Formal gardens of long ago looked much different than the garden your family has today. Growing and trimming plants to resemble precise geometric shapes was a specialty of gardens during the 17th and 18th centuries. Very wealthy landowners even had certain plants, like yews, boxwoods and junipers, pruned to resemble statuelike shapes.

This art of training and cutting living plants into special shapes is called topiary. You may have seen topiaries if you have ever visited Disney World in Florida, the San Diego Zoo in California, the Ladew Topiary Gardens in Maryland or other similar attractions. These places have topiary shapes of Mickey and Minnie, jungle animals like elephants and rhinoceroses and life-size ivy horses and camels growing all around the large outdoor parks.

There are basically two different kinds of topiary. The first is the sculpted kind, trimmed from growing shrubs; the second is created by training vines of certain plants like ivy to grow around wire frames. Both kinds of topiary are fun but the vine-and-frame method is faster to grow and easiest for beginners.

Ivy plants are inexpensive and easy to grow. You can make a heart-shaped frame from a wire coat hanger and train an ivy plant to grow into a beautiful tabletop topiary in time for Valentine's Day.

What You'll Need & How to Do It

What You'll Need

* a wire coat hanger

* wire cutters and pliers

* several short pieces of florist wire or twist-type fasteners

* a sturdy plant container with a drainage hole

* potting soil

* an ivy plant with two long, leafy stems

How to Do It

Step 1 With an adult's help, cut and shape the coat hanger into a heart with a long stem.

Step 2 Fill the plant container with soil and position the stem of the heart frame in the middle of the pot.

Step 3 Make a hole in the soil near the wire stem.

Step 4 Remove the ivy plant from its original container. Gently shake the excess soil off the roots and carefully place the plant in the hole close to the wire topiary stem. Fill the hole with extra soil and tamp it securely around the base of the ivy plant.

Step 5 Place the plant container in a sunny location and be sure to keep the soil moist but not soggy. As the ivy plant grows, train it to twine around the wire heart frame by gently securing the vines to the frame with small pieces of florist wire or twist-type fasteners.

Step 6 In a month or two, your topiary heart should be covered with green ivy vines. Give it to a special person for Valentine's Day or keep it as a reminder of how much you love growing plants.

RELATED ARTICLE: DID YOU KNOW?

* The botanical name for English ivy is Hedera. It belongs to the Araliaceae family.

* Many plants that are called "ivy" really aren't; poison ivy is one example. Poison ivy has leaves of three oval, pointed leaflets that are shiny on top and slightly hairy underneath. Just a touch of this plant is enough to cause your skin to itch, burn and blister.

* In Fife, Scotland, there is a garden dating back to the 15th century that contains two acres of 20-foot-tall yew trees trimmed to resemble giant chess pieces.

* Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, England, is decorated with three topiaries of Tudor queens: Queen Catherine Parr, Lady Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth I. The three ladies wear dresses of green ivy with different colors of rambler roses growing over them.

* The elegant shape of ivy vines is used to adorn many things like wallpaper, china, and fabrics. You probably can find several ivy designs on decorative items in your home.

* Ivy has an ornamental and symbolic role in mythology and history. Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld, carried an ivy-entwined staff at all times. Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, wore an ivy wreath around his head. In Rome, ivy was a symbol of intellectual achievement.