Thanks for the explanation, Kelly. THAT is quite amazing. I wouldn't have EVER thought about that! I have 3 bowling balls sitting in my garage in need of dressing up! Now, let me return the favor. You said >>(sidebar - I now have a 4x4 green patio table without a top, surely there's a use for that???) Here's what I'm doing with a metal patio table without the glass top that I just got...maybe you could do something similar with hour topless patio table. I am putting the bowl from our old Weber BBQ on it and will plant it this Spring. This is a taller table...more like a bar table than a normal-height one. We had used our old Weber grill so much the legs finally just collapsed. At the dump a couple weeks ago, the man at the next bin was readying to toss a Weber grill in the bin and I asked him if I could have it. So, I now have HIS old grill (which is in great shape to use for grilling) and I can use the bowl of my old legless grill and a recycled table as a planter.

I was going to give you the instructions I've been collecting, but see you got a teriific link that tells you nearly everything. Did it say to get 6 and a half bags of half marbles to do a regular sized bowling ball? Also I thought this person I'm quoting below had good information on preparation: "I paint mine with Fusion paint for plastics, or I use a plastic primer first and then a spray paint of my choice. I let the ball cure for 2 weeks per the can instructions, then I spray 3-4 layers of an outdoor clear poly on it and let that cure for another day or two, then it can go outside. I also spray it with clear poly every spring and bring them inside for the winter as they could crack depending on what the ball was made of. Make sure you get the waxy coating off the ball first by washing it with a 50/50 vinegar/water solution or rubbing alcohol." Hope some of this helps! We're anxious to see what you do! I want to do my first one too!

Thank you so much for wanting to add it to the gallery!! How exciting for me!! Believe it or not, the ball started out with a totally different design. On two other sides there are dragonflies, but I couldn't continue that pattern without screwing it up more & more as I went along, so finally I decided to go with this swirl pattern & it filled in perfectly & I wished I had done the whole thing that way. Here is a link that might be useful:

Clearly the tight balls on the Lake County web site are the result of close shearing and not how the plant grows on its own. Those I have seen here were fluffy pyramidal juvenile foliage forms; I am not surprised to hear about this falling over or splaying open, in the manner of similar forms of other species. That's too bad as it is rather appealing looking otherwise - in garden center sizes anyway. It isn't a matter of 'Bobazam' being a "correct" name and Mr. Bowling Ball then being therefore incorrect. The two names are instead two different things, Mr. Bowling Ball being a registered trademark used to sell the 'Bobazam' cultivar. During these days of large production nurseries in particular using trademarks and patents to assure profits being made on their plant introductions this combination of a memorable selling name (as these are called in Britain) and a jawbreaker cultivar name is common. Often the cultivar names in these instances are combinations of syllables that actually convey information, in this case the cultivar name surely stands for 'Bowling ball zam'pini - the last being the name of the principal of Lake County nursery. Here is a link that might be useful: [Mr. Bowling Ball] = 'Bobazam' Fact Sheet from Lake County nursery This post was edited by bboy on Fri, Aug 1, 14 at 22:34