How it is built
Bare Wire, Galvanized, Green
Galvanizing is the step between bare wire and green, and it decides whether an outdoor piece lasts three years or a decade.
SubjectFrame protection
StageAfter welding
Applies toEvery outdoor piece
MaterialsZinc over welded steel
ThenMoss or outdoor foliage
The brief
Galvanizing puts a zinc layer over the whole frame, welds included, before anything covers it. Bare steel outdoors rusts inside the joints, where you cannot see it, and often the first sign is the day the piece moves.
The zinc is hidden once a piece is covered, so this page shows the same frame at each stage.
Galvanizing is why a frame outlives its covering. Every piece in wire frame topiary is finished this way before it leaves.
The step that decides how long it lasts.
The three states
Wire, zinc, green.
The same stack of spheres, photographed at each stage.
Bare wire
The shape is welded and connected, with nothing protecting it. No outdoor piece should be left like this.
Galvanized
Zinc over every surface, welds included. The frame changes color and stops being the part that wears out.
Covered
Outdoor boxwood with UV protection goes over the top. From here the foliage wears out and the frame does not.
Every mossed animal and every custom commission we build goes through the same three stages: bare, galvanized, covered.
The foliage is consumable. The galvanized steel underneath is not.
Why it matters
It is why a worn piece is worth saving.
A tired piece with a sound frame does not need replacing. It needs stripping, re-coating and re-covering, like the eight-year-old swan, whose steel was still fine after eight years outdoors.
Specification
What it is made of.
- Frame
- Welded steel
- Protection
- Galvanized, zinc over the full frame and the welds
- Mossed work
- Chicken wire over the frame to hold sphagnum moss
- Planted
- That same wire is what roots eventually grip
- Outdoor
- UV-rated boxwood foliage over the top
- Lifespan
- The foliage wears out; the frame does not
- Repair
- Strip, re-coat and re-cover, reusing the frame
- Applies to
- Balls, spirals, animals, figures, brand shapes
Ready-made and custom
Where does a piece like this come from?
You can buy pieces ready-made, or commission one to your drawing, in the same frames, foliage and finishes.
Planning something like this?
Tell us what you are picturing.
Send a photo or a sketch with your dimensions and date. We come back with a design, a price and a delivery date, then build it to order.
- 4–10 weekstypical build time
- Any scaletabletop to 40 feet
- US & Canadashipping and install
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