Oops, misread again .. I missed your last line about only using one of the two sections. That will give you only 6'. That is far smaller than the usual recommendation. I would say it is possible but only with aggressive pruning. In particular, the way to keep vigorous vines under control is to hedge them in the summer: pretend its a hedge and trim all the shoots back to 3' or so length max. Do it once or twice in the summer depending on how fast they grow. That is how I kept my muscadines that were 3' apart in-line. Also make sure to winter prune back to the number of recommended buds per foot, no more, and have the cordon end a couple feet from the end of the trellis - make it only 3' or so long total. Note that I had major dieback of my muscadines a couple winters due to cold. Hopefully you have one of the more hardy varieties. One of the advantages to your northernly location however is the vine will not put on as much growth since your season is shorter than where muscadines are normally grown. Scott

Great topic, and lucky for me, timely! I would love to see pictures too. I just bought materials for building my trellis. I have two female (Hayward) and one male vine also from Edible Landscaping. I've decided to go sturdy. I'm glad there are some wire experts around, because this I'm afraid may be the weakest point. I'm hoping the t-bar trellice will last over 60 yrs. I bought 8' 4x6 posts and concrete to sink them 2 ft deep. 6' 4x4 will make the horizontal section, braced by 4x4 sections cut at 45 deg angle and bolted with 3/8 inch galvenized lag screws (6" long). I have 1/8" braided cable, galvenized and coated with vinyl to be tightened with 5.5" turnbuckles. I wanted to get ferrules to loop and fasten the cable, but the hardware store salesman said the vinyl coat would make it too thick. Good to know I made the right choice with the vinyl coating with the treated wood. I almost bought stainless steel cable but it felt very rough (if I was a fuzzy kiwi...owch!) Instead I bought a screw fastened clamp for 3/16" wire. The salesman said I could take the wire down without cutting it with this. They look pretty cheap though, no mention of galvenized, plated or anything. It says made in China, but stamped Taiwan....I have a nightmare that during one of our windy hurricanes, tornatoes, hailstorms that the wire will snap and the vines will come crashing down. What do you think? I'll try to post pictures of this project, but haven't done this before so it may take a minute....

JT, Was it you who wanted a wyeberry plant? I tip rooted one, but I'm not sure it took? It's a tangled mess, and one cane died. Not sure if it was the tip rooted one? If so, sorry. I will soon dig in there. The thorns are crazy, so I have avoided it. But soon time to bare root the plant, if viable. If not I'll try again next year. I had success with a cutting, but that was promised out in the spring. I'll take cuttings in the spring and try again. But it may have worked, let you know soon. Yes I got a few and they were very similar. Actually hard to tell apart. The wyeberries were bigger, but otherwise taste, and plant characteristics were very similar. I made jam with currants, wild blackberries, tayberries and wyeberries all mixed in. One of the best jams this year. I made 4 different jams so far. The other standout was a mix of domestic and wild black raspberries. Both were killer. Both are already gone! Friends and family after tasting took them all! It is rather tart raw, but man the jam was excellent. I myself liked the mix with currants. That really made it unique tasting. Mostly red currants, some whites, and pinks in there too. Anyway plants are still growing, but soon I should be able to take it. I guess I should wait till dormant, but could try now. Well in about a week I have to leave town this week and will be back the 27th. I'll post at that time status of tip rooted plant. Again I didn't see much difference between the plants. nest year will be better as both grew like crazy. Although the wyeberry seems to be a better growing bigger berry version of Tayberry. I have a boysenberry between the plants and it grew so much, it's hard to tell what cane is what? They all overlapped each other. I left them on the ground as I need to cover them. I will trellis them in the spring. While dormant I'm going to cut the boysenberry way back, ridiculous how long the canes are. Some are almost 20 feet long. I'll sort them, prune them, trellis them in late winter/early spring.

Getting the trellis/arbor in place before planting was definitely a good move. If I had done it in the other order, I would probably damaged several of the plants in the process. There was enough mayhem as it was, without worrying about hurting the plants. One thing I didn't mention which has caused me some pain is the height of the trellis. I'm just over 6' tall and I sank the 8' poles 2' into the ground. That puts the horizontal bars at around 5'11", just right to be blocked out by the bill of my hat, yet still impact my head. I lost count after hitting my head more than a dozen times. I'm not sure what I could have done differently (aside from ducking...), as I wouldn't want to make the structure less stable by burying any shallower or use the thinner poles as posts. I suppose I could have tried to find taller poles, though I used the longest I found at the local HomeDepot. I did order the plants in late June, thinking I would put it up the next weekend. It turned out to be a longer, iterative project, with at least 4 trips to the hardware store.