He wanted to collapse once he was done actually maturing the plants, casting a finite once they were a good size. Ben didn't know how he had done it, but he had managed to get to what he needed to. Another glance at the notes of his friend showed he was up to the pruning stage which was where everyone else appeared to be at. So instead of collapsing or moving on at the moment, the Gryffindor took the time to write it all down onto his own parchment. Who knew how much of it he might need in the future so he was going to make sure he had it all available for himself for future reference.

Once he was happy with what he had, Benny turned back to his potted plants to get back to the actualy work. His hands reaching to fiddle with the various branches and shoots to try and see what he had to deal with and what he might want to do. The second year vaguely remembered his plan required training one plant around the other, the more flexible ivy around the more stock lavender stems. So he started there, figuring he needed to work on that before cutting stuff off anywhere. Otherwise he'd have to train with smaller pieces for now until it grew a little more which he didn't want to do.

No waiting anymore than he had to please. Else he'd grow too old to enjoy it much.

Mo stuck his tongue out at Alice, very maturely, really, and continued filling his pot with dirt. Once all the dirt was gone, and his pot still wasn't full, Mo started stealing dirt right out of Alice's seedling hole and adding it to his pot. When his pot was full, Mo moved a few feet away and tried to look unobtrusive.

Now then... he dug a hole in the dirt and planted his ivy in it, loosening the root ball into the dirt so the whole thing had room to breathe. It was pretty just like this, with the strands all overflowing the pot, even if they weren't going anywhere yet. Just like a floppy waterfall of foliage, but it was already kind of pretty. He'd take care of the shape soon enough.

For now, he was content to water the ivy and braid some of the strands 'cause they looked pretty that way. "Aguamenti." Careful not to get the soil overly damp, especially since the plant was potted and would be less likely to drain.

He removed the first of the wire forms he'd made from his pocket, a small mesh ball the size of a walnut that was quickly expanded to beachball size with an "Engorgio." He settled the frame along the open top of the pot, right on top of his ivy plant.

Taking a short breather after having trimmed down the height of his boxwood plant, Sander knelt slowly down until he was down on his knees on the ground. He was now about eye level with the plant. Taking out the parchment with the topiary sketched on it, Sander studied his design first to decide where he was to work on first.

He had the head, the torso, the tail and all four feet...all of which weren't easy feats to accomplish, no pun intended. For one not really well versed in pruning his own topiary, Sander hoped he didn't mess up on his very first attempt. Picking up his shears, he began planning out a rough outline of his topiary.

As he looked at the plant, he visualized the body of the dog to be the middle of the plant. The head would branch out to the left of that and the tail off to the right. The dog's legs would in turn branch out from the base at least a feet off the ground.

With that plan in mind, Sander began trimming his plant into shape.

Adi was working on the Superman's feet. He was kneeling before the plant and carefully snipping away using his wire to guide him. So far so good. Except that his hands would hurt after a while and he would have to pause before moving on. Right now he paused to have a look at his progress. The feet were coming along nicely.

Adi snipped away at the right foot, getting rid of any excess branches. He was starting to feel less edgy now that he was actually getting the trimming done. Now he took a short pause because his hands were hurting again. He passed away the time by looking at the others worked. Poor Benny seemed to be a little behind. Ah well. He'll catch up.

Right. Back to work! Adi grabbed his shears and began snipping away to form Superman's muscular thighs.

Okay, it was time for Lux to get to serious work with her topiary. It needed to be watered and then trimmed into the shape she had made her frame. Right now, it did not look anything like Ariel sitting on a rock, and fingers crossed that Lux could actually do this right. Hopefully Professor Bentley would not fail her if she messed up; but the woman was so nice, it was doubtful that would happen.

Pointing her wand at the base of her plant where the roots were, she said, "Aguamenti." As the water streamed out, she circled around, making sure that enough of the soil got wet. It was not good to water too much, and on the other hand, it was not good to give it less water than it needed.

Once she was sure that she had everything watered perfectly, Lux finished the spell with a, "Finite."

Getting ready to start trimming his plant into the outline of the topiary he had planned to grow, Sander first made markings where each part would branch out from the central part of the plant which would later be pruned to form the body of Spike.

Sander studied his drawing again before taking his pair of shears and marked off where the neck of his dog would emerge from the body, but cutting a small gap at the top of the plant over to the left side. Then he moved over to the right side and marked off where the tail would branch off, taking his sheers and snipping a couple of branches off.

Then he knelt down and marked off each leg. Cutting slits at the base of the plant where he figured the legs would emerge from the torso. Now that he had everything marked off, Sander began the shaping process electing to use his pruning scissors.

Snip...snip...snip...he went as he began shaping the dog's torso, stopping every so often to study his drawing. Snip....snip...snip...an outline of the dog's torso was beginning to form. The fine tuning and trimming of his topiary would be done once he had an actual outline to work from.

Sander next began trimming and shaping the dog's head. He first cut out a small mound that would form the head and then from there, he trimmed into shape the muzzle of the dog. Next came the ears which too more time as he had to first cut the outline out, and then trim around it, so that both ears would have a two dimensional look to it.

Now for the neck. From the base of where the dog's head met with the rest of the plant, Sander picked up his shears and began cutting along sideways, angling each cut so that the dog's neck sloped downwards to meet the dog's torso right in the middle. Again, shaping would come later.

Now for the tail. Since he only wanted a thin one, Sander first snipped an outline of it and then began trimming off the rest with his shears.

Snip....snip....snip...remove....study drawing....snip....snip...snip...study..

...until he had a nice long bushy tail sticky out from his plant. Sander grinned to himself. He had to admit that he had done a good job on sculpting the tail of his dog.

Okay now onto the dog's legs.

Watering done, it was time for Lux to begin trimming her plant. On second look, it was not as bad as she had originally thought. It was easy enough for her to work this out, as she could use the sheers to cut at the branches that were sticking out within her reach. The other ones, she could get with her wand. The beauty of magic and all that.

Heading back to her table, Lux put on her pair of gloves before heading over to get a pair of sheers. They made her think of huge scissors. Back at her topiary, she looked it over, trying to decide where she wanted to start off. Probably best to work her way up.

Sitting down, she got in as comfortable a position as possible, deciding on which branch she wanted to start with first. It was important to only cut the branches that were either too long, or looked weird with the frame. Settling on one that was almost right in front of her, she cut it with her sheers.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

The legs...the legs were definitely harder than shaping the torso, the head or the tail of this topiary. The legs had to look like they were caught frozen in mid-air. The legs had to be sturdy and strong because if the animation spell worked, they would be moving and running around.

Sander first started snipping away the base of the plant...snip....snip....snip using his shears. He cut away at the bottom of the plant, all the while making sure that he left the main trunk and branches of the plant intact. Once he had the base of the dog's torso shaped out, using Sander slowly cut out the dog's forelegs and then the hind legs.

Snip....snip....snip...he worked his way through the plant with his pruning shears pausing ever so often to study his drawing to make sure he was following its design as closely as possible.

....snip....snip...snip....the legs were beginning to take shape. Then its paws.

Sander stepped back to study the base of the plant. The plant now looked like it had legs sticking out of it. Legs that looked like they were meant to run.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

Lux continued to work away with her sheers, making sure that she kept her frame in perfect condition, and only cut the branches that needed it, in exactly the right spot.

The rock that Ariel was sitting on started taking shape, as was her draping tail. Absent-mindedly, Lux began to hum Under the Sea to herself. Gosh, this topiary was going to look amazing, and she was so proud of herself.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

Working to music always made things go easier for her, and with the amount of students suffering from hearing problems, surely it would not be an issue.

After a bit longer, with a growing pile of branches at her feet, Lux had the entire rock and half of Ariel's tail cut. Not too bad if she said so herself. The torso, arms, head, and hair still needed doing, but some of that would be done with magic, as otherwise she would either need a ladder or to be really tall.

Now that he had the outline of his topiary, it was time to shape it and create the two dimensional look he had planned for his topiary. Replacing the shears for a pair of pruning scissors, Sander knelt back down again and first worked on the head. He trimmed and rounded, pulling out twigs and snipping them off before pulling out another and snipping that off.

......snip....snip...snippity...snip.....

He now had the nose, muzzle and eyes. Next were the ears.

....snip....snip....snippity....snip...snip....sni p....

He trimmed underneath the edges of each ear, thinning out the sides until he had a two dimensional shape of each floppy ear.

Next was the neck, Sander leaned down and using the pruning shears began shaping and rounding the neck finishing up with the chest.

....snip....snip....snip....snip....snip...

Now for tail. Nice and long extending from the backend of the torso sticking almost horizontally upright. Using his pruning scissors, he shaped and rounded the tail.

Sander stood up, stepped back and studied his topiary. He held up his drawing comparing it with the topiary he had just sculpted. All he had to do now was trim off the loose twigs and leaves and he was done.

... was he taking dirt...... out of her HOLE?

Yeah, Senile Mo was no longer cute. More like annoying now.

"Oi. Cut that out." With gloved hands, Alice stole back her soil right from his pot and replaced it around her seedling, patting it down with love. Clearly, Cactus was jealous that he hadn't thought of a form as good as an ostrich and was trying to sabotage her creation. But she was too smart to fall for that, see?

The seventh year pulled her hands out of the form again. After giving another nod and a grin to that Hufflepuff kid, she started to consider how she was going to shape her ivy. Those clipper things seemed like a good idea, but were her arms strong enough to hold a pair of those up? Probably not, so maybe Alice would stick to magic today.

"Aguamenti." Moving her wand in the squiggly motion of the spell, she began watering her plant.

Merlin, there was a lot of this. Trimming was going to take forever.

With the base of his Superman Topiary completed now, Adi began to shape out the upper part. He was getting nervous again. He carefully snipped away at branches so he could form the torso.He was creating this from memory so he didn't have to be interrupted by the need to glance at a sketch every second. And honestly, who didn't know what Superman looked like?

The Puffer paused to ease some of the pain out of his hands. If it weren't were the stupid aches he would make progress a lot faster. He eyed the torso. It seemed to be okay. He'd snip out the neck now then work on the hands then the face (which would surely be the most difficult and then finally the cape.

Adi made some final trimmings to the torso area before getting started on the neck.

Robin flushed at the Professor's praise and stepped a bit behind her topiary, which didn't do much seeing how it was only 3 feet tall. She snapped out of it as the Professor seemed to move on and explain the activity- time to prune huh? She took out her outline and held it in front of the shrub- looking back and forth. Of course she would have to do the body outline shaping first, but she had changed her mind and since she was feeling more comfortable she decided to use the cutting charm. She flipped her notebook back a page to make sure she had the spell down.

So she wasn't the only one to consider flying her butt to class? They should have had this conversation sooner, it could have been arranged and neither would be as achy or winded as they seemed to be right now. The broom would have worked. She always kept hers up in her dorm with her and knew how to fly through windows...or walk down all the stairs first. It depended really. "Next class we have this far out, we're grabbing our brooms. CoMC is miles away from either of our Common Rooms. We have to preserve our strength." You know, for when they got to the actual lesson and stuff.

hdsvfjesfves!!! YES! Jun was understanding something no one else seemed to be. "You think they extended the grounds without us knowing? I've never ached trying to get to the courtyard before, forget classes!" Though it might have been all the aging...

...

Yeah it could have been. Even more reason to wish they'd hurry up and cure them already. She couldn't live like this!

Lex looked to the Professor again, catching her staring before moving on. What?....Was there something on her face? It was the hair wasn't it? Ugh. When would she be blonde again? Could she maybe have some of Botros'? Kind old man, he wouldn't mind sharing.

She raised her wand to the plant she was sticking with, the only one now firmly in the ground. First things first. This size would never do. They had limits and she was prepared to stay within the limits but this wasn't exceeding it yet so..."Engorgio!"......almost there....little more....."Finite." THERE! Perfect! Ahem. "Aguamenti!" Watering it was obviously important, just look at the fuss the Professor had created.

They were going to start cutting up the bush. Sweet, he looked at the fully grown bush still proud of himself for doing it on the first try. Maybe Head plant professor was good luck or something. He hoped it would keep up, because his frog had to be perfect. Pointing his wand, "Aguamenti" watering his plant until it seem to have enough of a drink, he stopped the water and looked around to see what the next step was.


Never doing any charms to trim a bush before the second year wasn't sure he could do it. He looked into his book to find what it was. flipnsnipwitit was that the one he needed to use? He could just get the things to do it the muggle way. What did she call them, sheers? Yeah that was it, but he didn't like doing things the muggle way when he had a wand right there in front of him, so Bart would try the spell. Sorry plant!

Doing the wand movement he tried to speak clearly at a branch, "flipnsnipwitit" Nothing... "flipnsnipwitit" again nothing. Well so much for his luck of first time. He moved around the bush with his shuffling speed. Maybe it was just being stubborn and he needed to try the other side. Doing the movement again, "flipnsnipwitit" He might have done the movement a bit too well, because more of the trimming came of than he wanted.


Ooops... well this could be the frogs behind.

Lex took a step back so she could proper size up her bush. It was just barely taller than she was now but given the design she had in mind it was all she would really need. Unlike the giant snake Alice wouldn't let her have then Mo tried STEALING a kneazle didn't have to be that big and being taller than her it was already good for riding when the time came to add the spell. That was all she really needed, nothing over the top that would draw stares and have people yelling at her to get down before she ran someone over--which she would have...yup.

The Gryffindor circled the boxwood plant, trying to figure where to start the head and which end would be the tail. Hmmmmm....And another circle, in fact a few more after that. This was harder than it looked! What if she picked the wrong end and it looked deformed?? Naturally she'd have to dig it up and start over but the work involved in that was enough to bring her into another circle.

Alright. She was going to make herself dizzy if she continued this. Lex stopped and fished a knut from her pocket. Need she say how this would work?

She flipped it and it landed on heads, meaning the section she was currently facing was now heads. Congratulations. Alexa walked back to the supplies and got herself a few of the hacking tools. Wand work would only happen when it got to the parts that were taller than her and therefore out of reach. Next she grabbed her parchment with her design and laid it on the floor next to her. Where to begin....? Glancing down she deciding the torso would be appropriate and set the standard for the rest so it got the first hack cut and several others after that.

Robin checked with her notebook to make sure she had the spell right and decided to start with the chipmunks body since it was the most general space.
"flipnsnipwitit"
her voice stuck in her throat and she giggled at how silly she sounded. She struggled to put on a straight face and tried again, with a much calmer voice
"flipnsnipwitit"
much better- the branch she was aiming at snapped off and fell to the ground.

She had a plan - she would do the shape cutting with magic but leave the branches a bit higher than she wanted so that if she made a mistake- it wouldn't matter because she could easily fix it with the hand shears. Speaking of which she should probably get some...

The dinosaur shaping was coming along pretty well by this point although Ella had traded the shears in for her wand, hoping that this would ease some of the pain she was feeling in her hands. Sore joints these days, y'see. And the Head girl was currently using the Severing Charm to cut any of the thicker branches that were fighting against the shape she was going for, wanting to get those out of the way so that she could move on to the Trimming Charm. That was her plan, anyway. First timer so who knew if it was a good one.

"Diffindo." Perhaps a dinosaur had been a bit ambitious for a first time topiary maker because the size was a bit overwhelming now that Ella had been working on the head and neck for a while. She'd assumed that creating them would be time consuming but you never really have a clear idea until you try it yourself, yeah? "Diffindo." Oh and another thing, could they use these bits of branches and leaves in the compost? She'd have to ask Hadley about that because she'd created quite the little pile by her feet. "Diffindo."

Pausing to look at her work thus far, Ella stepped back and tilted her head to the side. Hmm. The head definitely looked like a head which was good although the neck area still looked a bit overgrown. Perhaps like the dinosaur had sprouted hair or something. That wasn't exactly the look she was going for so she stepped up to the frame again, picking out the different points that needed to be dealt with and carefully dealing with them. Careful was the operative word here. The blonde was still definitely concerned about taking off too much of the boxwood.

It was important to get the slight sinking where the back was. She didn't figure the Professor would be providing saddles and she didn't want to end up falling off. Just think of the epic fail it would have been, darting through the grounds on a giant kneazle!bush!plant then sliding right off. It'd be even worse if the thing was as unruly as her kneazle had the potential to be. What if it kept riding HUH?? Never looking back to see if her brittle old bones were all broken from the fall? It could happen, she saw someone break their arm doing less.

So yes, a slight dip where the back was. It was more than a little difficult with all the shrubbery still on the top. Lex didn't plan to clear that away until she'd gotten to the head part but now it looked like she'd have to give it the basic shape then add the details after, if only to get the propotions right.

With a heavy sigh she put down the lovely hacker tool and drew her wand from its holster. She traced along the bush with her wand, trying to get the image right in her head before she went magically severing out of control. The height of the head was fine here....wand trailing down in a diagonal motion as she contemplated the neck region....somewhere here was good--aha! The back. Yup. This was a decent height and now she could make it's outline.

"Diffindo!" The first slice was the diagonal one distinguishing the neck followed by another, "Diffindo!" bringing the back into clearer view. Right now it looked more like a square shaped giraffe or something but that was minor details. She wasn't ready to get into the fine tuning yet. Next to be hacked--because it WAS hacking even when you used a wand--was the underbelly. She had to be careful not to take too much because the legs needed enough to support the design and her. "Diffindo!"

Bay had to take a break and he was only half way through trimming the first circle on the top.. sitting down he laid the sheers down next to him… his old little arms started to hurt… "man this is almost as bad as Astronomy…. my arms are killing me" he rubbed each arm carefully.. "why would they give us physical tasks when were almost all so old?" he thought while taking deep breaths..

"alrighty right back at it.." getting back up from the ground.. he heard a big Pop instantly his eyes started to water up and he yelled "OWWWWWWWW" his hand went to his knee…. he started to hop around a bit.. still saying oww… thinking in his head that he was glad he didn't' cut himself with those sharp sheers… but he was still in a lot of pain..

Robin huffed as she got the shears, not because it was heavy or she was tired, but the sudden climate changes were weird, it was humid around her plant but chilly out by the shed. She liked the plant area better. She approached her plant- the slight curve of the chipmunks back and head were already outlined with a bit of space left over so she decided to cut down the extra branches that made the chipmunk look chubbier than desired.
Snip snip snip snip
The back looked like the back now and the head was more defined but she realized too late she had forgotten to leave branches for a tail.
ummmmm which spell would help with that? She thought hard before it clicked ah!
She chose a group of branches that could be extended to make a tail/
"Engorgio"

They were a bit fuller than she expected, but shears could fix that.

Alexa took a step away from her plant, it was important to view it from the right perspective to make sure she was doing it right. Didn't want it looking funny because of strange proportions now did she?

By the looks of it it was coming out find. The basic shape was there and the picture on the ground by her foot would let her know the extra areas to be snipped. That being the case, she no longer needed her wand and could tuck it away again. This was where manual labour came in. There was a type of precision that you couldn't get with a wand--in theory. She supposed if you had bloody brilliant aim it would be different and her aim was more than decent but there was nothing like the feel of a hacking tool to make you feel productive.

Lex grabbed up with giant scissors looking tool again and began another set of circling around the plant. Now that it had the basic shape she could choose just about anywhere to start--wasn't she trying to work on the back...?

...oh yeah.

The circling came to an end with her at the centre of the plant again. It was the slight sink in the back that she'd wanted to work on. Enough for a makeshift saddle. Snip. Snip. Snip. Was that deep enough? Maybe just another to be on the safe side...and another...okay maybe just one more after that too. THERE. Shaping out the stomach came next. Lex began cutting away at the sharp edges, giving it a rounder look until the kneazle's torso stopped looking more like a box. Next was the fee--

Sweet Circe.

Loud Bay was loud. Lex turned to her housemate, having almost snipped her finger off with his sudden outburst. She watched him hopping about, tempted to petrify him so he'd hold still...but that was probably frowned upon so....

"Where does it hurt? The joint itself?" The Gryffindor was no healer, the most she could do was suggest he knock it back into shape but it might not have slipped out in the first place. "Hold still." She said, making the short walk over to him. It was hard to see when he was just hopping the way he did. "Here, lemme help you sit then we can have the Professor take a look." She said, holding a hand out to him.

"Er...Professor? Help?"...Yeah..this wasn't her job....she couldn't REALLY fix him.

Sander knelt back on the ground, placing the pruning shears down on the ground next to the shears. For this part of the task, he was going to use magic. Unholstering his wand, he pulled at an errant twig, pointed his wand at it and said,"Flipnsnipwitit" snipping off the twig. Then he proceeded to the next twig and repeated the steps.

"Flipnsnipwitit....Flipnsnipwitit....Flipnsnipwitit ......Flipnsnipwitit...." he cast the spell over and again, removing loose twigs, smoothing out the edges until he was finally done. Stepping back from the topiary, Sander ended the trimming charm by saying, "Finite" before holstering it.

Sander pulled out his parchment one more time and compared it with the topiary he had just sculptured. It wasn't exactly perfect but anyone could see that it was a dog running in mid-air. Sander sat back on the ground, rubbing his back and hands, and rested while waiting for the Professor to begin speaking again.

Caleb had been practicing this seed maturing spell thingy and was not seeing ANY results. It wasn't very often that he had trouble with spells but when he did - UGH. So annoying.

After a few tries, he saw some movement in the pot and thought it was probably going to work. FINALLY, that took forever! He cleared his throat and focused carefully on the pot, confident that this time would be THE time.

"Vitari Evergreen!" Caleb said, pointing at his plant. A few seconds later - BAM! There was an evergreen shrub ready for trimming. It took a while but he was finally ready to start!

Robin was maybe getting carried away with thinking about what it SHOULD look like, she kept staring at the outline- then the shrub- then the outline, and so-on.
and she hadn't even gotten to the details. Merlin have mercy. She coaxed herself to get the entire outline of the chipmunk done.

snip snip snip

Rough outline of the ears=done!

snip snip snip
The tail was nicely trimmed

She stared at her shears- however practical they seemed to be she still should work on her spells as well, it WAS Hogwarts after all.
She focused on the leg of the chipmunk made from a sturdier branch.
"Flipnsnipwitit"
and.....nothing? The spell didn't have an affect on the stubborn branch she would have to use diffindo, even though she hadn't really practiced it much..
“D-Diffindo!" She wasn't surprised when it didn't work. That seemed to happe whenever she hesitated with a spell. She focused a bit more
"Diffindo?" It came out as a question and a twig fell from a branch but not quite was she was looking for.
"Diffindo!" She said strongly. Ahhh there it was! The branch snapped off cleanly and the shape of the Chipmunks leg could be seen!