Branching out

When you bundle up this spring's yard prunings for the trash, you could be throwing away trellises and garden ornaments.

Many of those branches we'll be cutting off of cluttered, oversized or winter-damaged landscape plants make excellent rustic wooden garden structures.

Just wire 'em together with pliers and a little imagination and there's no limit to the kind of useful homespun creations you might come up with.

"Not much manual dexterity is required, just practice and some cusswords," says Oklahoma horticulturist and professional gardener J.P. Malocsay, who likes to call these structures "twiggeries."

"Don't fret about making mistakes," he says. "Wire and unwire to your heart's content. Wire loosely to see how the connection fits. Fiddle and fuss and change your mind till you're satisfied it's time to twist and stand firm."

Malocsay started "twiggering" soon after he saw a pair of 4-by-8-foot hazelwood wicket panels in a Connecticut garden.

The owners had imported them for $1,500 a pop from England.

Malocsay realized the raw material wasn't behind the cost. It was the time and creative skill driving the value.

That got him thinking about all of the yard prunings that people routinely toss or grind up -- limbed-up tree branches, shoots from the lilacs and red twig dogwoods, even excess branches from ordinary evergreen yew bushes that most every yard has.

Stripped of their needles and little side branches, most of these make superb twiggery fodder.

Before long, Malocsay was making his own simple vine supports, rustic trellises, Colonial-style path edgings and just plain old fun ornaments to add focal points to garden beds.

He's even made oak-branch arbors, rustic gates, dog fencing, and yes, even his own wicket panels for a lot less than $1,500.

Adorned with flowering vines, such panels are great for instant patio screening or for hiding "uglies" such as heat pumps and trash cans.

"Twiggeries are useful for all kinds of things," he says.

One side benefit he's found is how attractive twiggeries are to birds.

"You'd be amazed how the birds like to land on these and look around," he says.

Primarily, they're after the wood-boring beetles and other bugs that nature sends to help break down dead wood.

"The usual bark-savvy woodpeckers, nut-hatches, titmice, chickadees and wrens inspect cedar twiggeries regularly," Malocsay says. "Sharp-eyed generalists quickly catch on, too -- sparrows, juncos and cardinals."

Malocsay says readily available yews and junipers make some of the best twiggery wood. Yews, in particular, "last for donkey's years," he says.

He also likes oak, hackberry, willow, locust, grapevines and crape myrtle, and for interesting Halloween concoctions, the twisted prunings of Harry Lauder walking stick (a filbert with a contorted growth habit).

Really, almost any pruning of sufficient size will do the trick. The main difference is how long the different woods last.

Malocsay says it's best to work with recently cut branches. Those are green and most pliable.

He suggests using lineman's pliers and rebar tie wire to get the job done.

Lineman's pliers have squared-off, blunt noses with cutting edges in their throat. They're perfect for electricians who need to twist, pull and manipulate wire and also cut it off with one handy tool.

"Ordinary pliers will drive you nuts," Malocsay warns.

Rebar wire is much sturdier than floral or picture-frame wire, and it's made for outdoor use. It comes in coils in a variety of gauges and is available at most hardware stores.

You can even buy galvanized or PVC-coated rebar wire, but Malocsay likes the au natural kind because its rusting adds to the rustic nature of a twiggery.

"Do make a habit of looping all cut ends," he adds. "Loop as you cut so you don't forget, unless, of course, random body piercing is your secret joy."

Remember, all that counts is that you like it.

"These artifacts are very much at home in gardens of no great consequence," Malocsay says, "which is to say house-about gardens made and maintained by their owners for their own pleasure."

In other words, have fun. Enjoy the process. Don't shoot for Smith and Hawken perfection.

"Adopt a playful attitude," Malocsay says. "These rustic artifacts are simple, natural improvisations."

And if you don't like what you've improvised, you can always get out the lineman's pliers and start over.