Giant Allium Chicken Wire Flowers

My daughter sent me a link inspiring me to get outdoors and think fun!  But all it did was make me obsess over how I could fabricate these big A$$ purple flowers with chicken wire. 

With no instructions on the link, I was forced to create my own Giant Allium flowers with only this amazing picture to guide me. 

I scrounged some chicken wire from my Chicken Daycare Project.

Found this heavy ball statue for a jig,    I made a bigger one with a basketball and it worked great!

You could use anything round and hard,

 hmmmm that doesn't sound right.

This will be where the stem gets attached.  A view from the top.

I used some bamboo stakes that I stole from my greenhouse tomatoes.

  When I only had three of them to spare, I ended up using metal stretcher rods from an old car tent which was salvaged to build the Recycled Greenhouse Project.  I liked the metal rods better as they can be forced  into the ground  more easily.

Added some duct tape to the stem to cover the poky wire ends.  If only  I would have had green duct tape to begin with.

Now you gotta pull it off the mold and twist the top closed while trying to keep it ball shaped.  I didn't get a picture of this step, but it looks like an open top flower at this point.  Twisting it closed will bend it out of shape but with patience and perhaps some gloves, you can get it back into a round ball shape.   The excess wire was cut off with side cutters and  pushed down to keep a globe like shape.

It's hard to see in this photo, but I covered the stem in floral tape.  At this point I still need to pick up some purple spray paint so I might buy some green duct tape from the dollar store to cover the stems as I am pretty sure the floral tape won't hold up to the`great outdoors.

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And off to town I go.....

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Got the purple spray paint and green duct tape. I sprayed all ten of them, wrapped some of the stems and tried my best to get some half decent shots....I know you already went to the other site....That's okay.  I think I've been there at least ten times.

Speaking of garden art, guess what we finished.....

Our leaf plantation started here.

We will need one more leaf in this area to complete the trio.  But for this season, we will settle for twins!    They both light up at night and probably freak the moths out.

Okay....go now and check out the original picture one last time!  Aren't they amazing......traitor!

Cheers!