How it is built
Bare Wire, Galvanized, Green
The middle step nobody photographs — and the one that decides whether a piece lasts three years or a decade.
SubjectFrame protection
LocationOur workshop
Applies toEvery outdoor piece
MaterialsZinc over welded steel
ThenMoss or outdoor foliage
The brief
Bare steel outdoors does not rust where you can see it. It rusts inside the joint, and the first anyone knows about it is the day the piece moves. Galvanizing puts a zinc layer over the whole frame, welds included, before anything covers it.
It is invisible in the finished piece, which is exactly why it is worth showing. Almost every question we get about longevity is really a question about this step.
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, welded and connected, with nothing protecting it. This is the state most people picture when they hear "wire frame" — and it is the state no outdoor piece should ever be left in.
Galvanized
Zinc over every surface including the welds. The frame changes colour and stops being consumable.
Covered
Outdoor boxwood with UV protection over the top. From here the foliage is the wearing part and the frame is not.
The same three states — bare, galvanized, covered — sit behind every mossed animal and every custom commission we build.
The foliage is consumable. The galvanized steel underneath is not.
Why it matters
It is why a worn piece is worth saving.
If the frame underneath is sound, a tired piece does not need replacing — it needs stripping, re-coating and re-covering. See the eight-year-old swan, which came back after eight years outdoors with its steel still fine.
Specification
What it’s 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
- Foliage is the wearing part; the frame is not
- Repair
- Strip, re-coat, re-cover — the frame is reused
- Applies to
- Balls, spirals, animals, figures, brand shapes
From the same workshop
Where does a piece like this come from?
The same frames, foliage and finishes that built this one — sold ready-made or commissioned to your drawing.
Planning something like this?
Tell us what you’re 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 in our own workshop.
- 4–10 weekstypical build time
- Any scaletabletop to 40 feet
- US & Canadashipping and install
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