Mickey Mouse Topiary - 3 Months In - Creeping Fig Vine - July 2021

Earlier this Spring, we came home with a Standing Micky Mouse metal wire topiary frame from the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival and I went ahead figuring out how to acquire the material, stuff the thing, wire it up and plant it with a creeping Fig Vine.  Here's that post from April that shows the steps I took to get it set up initially.  

Mickey Mouse topiary spent the first few months of its life on our counter top in the kitchen sitting in a bowl.  I tried to keep it pretty wet and the vine grew just a little bit.  Then, I had a setback with some dieback on the tips of the vine.  I think I let it dry out too much.  Around the beginning of June, I decided to try to move it outside on our back stoop and patio.  After a few days of trying to harden the vine off (I put it out in the shade for a few hours, then brought it back in.  Repeat that process over the course of a week or so, each day adding a little bit of time.), I decided to give it a little bit of assistance in terms of moisture maintenance by putting it inside/on-top-of a clay pot filled with soil.  That way, when I watered it, the run-off would run down through the soil and we'd get a little bit of watering beyond the initial soaking.  Well...thanks to all the rain we had in June and thus far in July, I've mostly forgotten about it.  And it has thrived.  

The Creeping Fig Vine has grown out from the little plug that started right by Mickey's heart and has shot up around one of his ears and across his belly.  Below, you can see the current state of the topiary:

You can go back and compare it to when I started about 90 days ago here (scroll down to bottom of post), but I also thought it would be useful to do a side-by-side comparison.  Here's a look at them below - on the left is current day; on the right is the starting point.

There's a bit of green growth on parts of the moss - either something like a moss or algae that I'm not unhappy with in terms of the overall look of the guy.  I'm hoping for even more growth over the next 60 days (thru mid-September) before I have to bring it back in for the Winter.  I'm seeing a few different leaders growing out - the one over his ear and the one over his belly, but there's also one right below his chin that is a separate leader.  With a little bit of water and fertilizer, I'm hoping that I'll be getting the topiary pins out around Labor Day to pin back some new growth.  

This is my first tropical topiary and my current thinking is to monitor the progress (and success/failure) of this Creeping Fig Vine Mickey Mouse over the Winter to see if I should buy, stuff, wire and plant even more of these.  

#24 on my 2021 to-do list was to get a topiary going and while I was thinking about something outdoor, I'm saying this one counts.