With the Holidays just around the corner, now is the time to discover how easy it is to create beautiful topiaries to grace your doorways, fireplaces, patios, porches, and walkways.

They look great wrapped in battery-operated mini lights and trimmed with red, gold, or silver bows. Use them indoors or out; you can even give them as gifts!

Here are two designs that will bring instant results:

Cone-Shaped Topiary

• You'll need a nice bushy 5-gallon eugenia compacta, Japanese boxwood, Texas privet or rosemary upright.
• Those 3 ft. or 5 ft. cone-shaped tomato cages make a great guide for cone-shaped topiaries. Just bind the spikes together at the top with strong wire. You can also use cone-shaped chicken wire forms or 4 ft. bamboo stakes lashed at one end and formed into a teepee shape.
• Plant the shrub into a decorative container.
• Place the form around the shrub and use sharp clippers to trim branches into the cone shape.
• For a bit of extra charm, you can plant it in a 16" diameter pot, then plant variegated ivy and/or other trailing perennials around the edges of the pot.

3-Tier Topiary

• Use cypress leylandii, podocarpus gracilior, or eugenia myrtifolia in the 5 gallon size to create a beautiful 3-tier topiary.
• Divide the shrub into 3 sections top to bottom.
• Use bright ribbon or tape to mark the top and bottom of the space between balls. (In the next step, you will trim between these markers.)
• Using sharp clippers, form the space between balls by trimming the branches off all the way to the main trunk.
• Next trim the branches of each section to form the globes or balls.
• Also consider combining the ball shape with the cone-shaped topiary above, and make yourself a 2-tier "ball and cone" topiary — ball on the bottom unless you want to be truly avant-garde!

Use a good potting soil such as Kellogg Patio Plus and fertilize with Organic Advantage Soil Builder to keep your topiaries in the best of shape.

Both topiaries can be done in an afternoon at a much lower cost than buying them ready made. Get started now so they're in top form for the holidays.

Most California gardens have everything needed to make beautiful, fast and easy Thanksgiving floral decorations for your table and accents all through the house. Here's one project you can do in just a few minutes....You'll have fun (and experience great health benefits) foraging through your garden in the cool autumn weather.

Harvest Bough — Great to hang over doorways, mirrors, mantels, and pictures.

You Will Need:

• 6 long thin branches from a tree or tall shrub, about 3' long each. Strip off all leaves
• 4-6 clusters of branches with colorful leaves. Liquidambar, nandina, or maple, for example.
• 4 long leaves such as bronze flax
• 3 medium-sized pine cones
• 6 long bean pods from acacia, cassia, or other legumous trees, shrubs, or vines
• florist wire
• hot glue gun
• harvest floral ribbon (optional)

Layer the bare tree branches in a crisscross pattern on a work table. Use florist wire to secure the center.

Next place 2 flax leaves on each side of the center. Place the leafy branches evenly on both sides of the center with the leaves pointing away from center; make sure the flax leaves are not totally covered.

Wire everything in place at the center and wire again at about 6" from each side of center. Cluster the 3 pine cones, wire together and then wire to the center. Using a glue gun, attach pods 3 each on either side of the pine cone cluster.

Optional: wind decorative holiday wire ribbon around and through the branches. Make a wire hook around the center and hang.

Use your imagination! Add blades of red pennisetum (fountain grass) or miscanthus or sprigs of crape myrtle and flower seed pods. Remember - the goal is to be resourceful and create a thing of beauty from your own backyard!