How do people think up such wonderful living sculptures?

Amazing living sculpture

https://inhabitat.com/fantastical-living-plant-sculptures-spring-to-life-at-the-atlanta-botanical-garden/

It's a bit ad heavy so I can't read the words, but maybe we don't need to?

These must be non-trivial to make...

I saw a lovely sculpture in Devon of a mossy lady... I'll see it I can find a picture. The trick is to keep them living for more than a season.

Here she is! I think my photo was pre-digital camera, and I haven't bothered to find it for you. It was at the lost gardens of Helligan in Cornwall UK, not Devon.


source

Apparently she was originally going to be a mermaid who crawled into the woods for a kip, but someone suggested she was a mud maid, the name stuck and she never got her tail. Made in 1998, she needs a bit of maintenance to stop the ivy covering her body too thickly, and has had the odd facial to remove clumpy moss.

She had a wooden armature, and the skin is 'a mix of compost, cement and sand'. I suppose it needs to have something to keep the surface from just crumbling in the rain in Cornwall.