Terrific Tuesdays: Tomato Cages into Topiaries

Hola lemonheads! Guess what? Time for a DIY project…Can you believe it? I’m back to DIY-ing it up!

I was looking at my less than beautiful tomato plants the other day and realized they were past their prime. I didn’t want to throw away the tomato cages, but I didn’t really want to store them…So what’s a frugal girl to do?

That is one gross lookin' tomato plant...

I decided to make my tomato cages into topiaries! Cool right? And not to mention green. I am soo environmental.

So first, gather your supplies:

• Old tomato cages
• Pots for the plants (they need to be a decent size since they will be supporting your topiaries)
• Soil
• hacksaw
• Wine cork
• ivy or some other plant that runs

Next, break the root ball of your plant. I used ivy because I had some. Good reason.

Breaking bad...

Then place the plant in a partially filled pot. Then fill around the plant and on top with soil.

Voila!

Now, grab your wine cork and cut it in half.

My tomato cages needed a little adjusting so I hacksawed them. I just cut a section off of the top and made the legs shorter.

You can use a hacksaw too!

Tip on using the hacksaw: Cut about half way through the metal you are trying to cut and then bend it back and forth until it breaks apart.

Bend it back, bend it forth, bend it...

Let me mention this. What has been the top of your cage will now become the bottom and the legs will now become the top. Moving on…

After you get your cages cut, then just bend the legs toward the middle to form the top “steeple shape.” Push the ends into the cork in order to protect others from getting jabbed by a piece of metal. Not cool at all.

You may want to secure them with a little hot glue.

At this point, you can spray paint it or leave it natural. I painted mine so the cork wouldn’t stand out so much.

Cork it!

After the paint drys, just slide the legs of the topiary down the sides of your pot. Your topiary should fit the pot snuggly.

Lastly, twine the vines around the topiary to start growing a lovely garden accent.

Lovely

Your topiary will now fill in by growing like crazy. Soon it will look something like this:

I have had this topiary for years.

So, do you have some spare cages lying around? If so, grab them up and start topiarying!