homemade trellis - will it work?

17 years ago

As everyone nowadays I am looking for something next to nothing. I LOVE vines,mainly MGs and moonflower vines. I thought of a trellis idea, but not sure if it would work. Who cares what it looks like,it will be covered with vines! I was thinking of getting 5 large tomato cages (the round wire ones)and somehow attaching them on top of one another (with wire or twine or just soddering them togethe, kind of like a totem pole. Will this work??? It sure would be cheap! Any suggestions,good or bad,are welcome! Julie

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Comments (11)

suzyqute
17 years ago
from personal experience, you would need to anchor into the ground, (with rod or something sturdy) as the weight of vines and the height you are talking of would cause it to fall over, and probably damage the vines .
lilamy
17 years ago
If you really don't care how it looks until the vines cover it, you can get a cattle panel or hog panel from your local Tractor Supply Company for well under $20. With a few t-posts or rebar stakes to secure the sides to, they make really neat arches. To make them a bit less obvious, I bet they could be spray painted dark green. Of course this would almost make more of an arbor than a trellis.....I am sure one panel could be set out straight instead of arched over for a standard trellis affect. :)

-Amy
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These are very nice. Simple and the wire mesh will be hardly visible. I will buy a similar support to put on top of a low fence which divides the "dog allowed" and "dog not allowed" parts of my garden ;-) I have some clematis planted there and would like to achieve some variety in height. BTW, I recently started planting along the fence in the "dog allowed" part and the results only remain satisfactory if I erect another fence in front of the existing one :-/ Especially the vines - clematis - suffer because the dog relieves himself around them AND then digs to cover the spot he's just used with soil. Invariably he breaks off clematis at the very ground! I will have to put mesh and some protruding bamboo supports around these plants so he cannot go near them. Annoying, isn't it, however I have to establish some plants on "his" side of the fence, too, otherwise I will live enclosed within a large dog pen (he is allowed around the entire house for security).
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i did try but i feel i was fairly half assed about it, it didnt seem to work. i crunched up a morninglory vine and stuck the end in a bucket of fermented stuff. I don't think that particular vine died even, i didnlt pull ît up to see if the root died. I'm pretty sure it didnt but rather just the end in the bucket died. The morning glôry roots are all over that part of the yard. Ilve decided to pull te vines regularly the last few months, before flowering if possible,and throw tem on my spring brassica veggie beds to help cool the soil and retain moisture (seems to help, i guess) What did seem to work-- i fermented old bbags ofbread from bakery dumpster in big bucket, leaving some exposed to air to grow mold. I also sperately had morning glory vines soaked but not submerged so they would have air exposure to grow mold. I took all this gnarly stuff and spread it on grass i wanted to kill, covered with cardboard, added some urine and water for good measure. Even though cardboard dried out it stayed moist underneäth. I think i added some worms and wet still ripe compost. This seemed to really kill the grass good and quickly. The matrix of roots was still someẃhat tough but i think way easier to dig out. I dont think this took more than a month in warm april/may. Also i wonder if i could make a more noxious brew of stuff that was more moldy and just harsher now that it's hotter out. I think roots are much harder to kill than leaves. One idea i had was to keep attacking the morning glory vines. Then when plants are weaker later this summer, and stressed without moisture, maybe some will get disease. Maybe i can take the diseased plant and try to get a culture going in a bucket that will grow that disease. We'll see. Maybe i won't even bother trying :-) I'm of course curious to hear about your adventures also!
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goldenpond
17 years ago
Rebar is great we use it alot down here in Hurricane Country! Chicken or Hogwire can be bent in any shape and I have found it in the trash and garage sales.
Connecting Tomato cages sounds like a REAL FRUSTRATION to me but it is up to you. I can just see putting up the tower and watching it tumble then starting over again.
Press The Easy Button!
TwoMonths
17 years ago
I do not think it will work. It is hard to get 2 on each other even to support tall tomatoes. Maybe you can find a baby bed spring or big bed spring. I have used the ends of metal bunk beds even. Good luck. I hope to grow more MG this year than just the little puny ones that came up the last 2 yrs...and not a good color either.
leubafr
17 years ago
I have a passion flower vine at my school on an obilisk. The wind kept turning it over. SO. . . . .I went to Walmart and bought some tent stakes. Pounded them into the ground at the bottom so that they hooked the bottom rim. Voili . . . . no more turned over obilisk.

Good luck,

Leubafr
nonacook
17 years ago
Box springs and bed springs work well. Anchor them with metal fence posts. Some of mine went through the hurricanes. See my web page for photos of the different kinds you can use. They have been up at least 7-8 years.

Http://members.cox.net/nonacook
cs7580
17 years ago
I dont know if it will work im going to try this

Here is a link that might be useful: trellis
emagineer
17 years ago
Cs...I love that post. Thanks for sharing it, so easy and lots of possibilities. There was a guy who lived by me that made old signs. People loved the ones which had their town with the altitude and those with mile info with name and arrow to favorite places. I've got a bunch of wood shingles from my roof replacement....think I'll try the post and use a few of these to make similar signs. Then plant some vines too.
grvtykllr
17 years ago
I can tell you how to build a cheap trellis for vines to grow on and it really doesnt look too bad while you wait for the vines to take over.
get some thin ( 1/2" or smaller diameter rebar and some pvc pipe.
20 foot lengths of each or good. PVC wants to bend in a specific U shape, put a length of rebar into the pipe and bring the ends together forming a large U. This is easiest with 2 people working together. Now the PVC pipe keeps the rebar from making any sharp bends and avoides needing a rebar hickey tool or jig. unsleeve the rebar and repeat with piece number 2. You now have 2 rebar pieces in the shape of a U with the same bend in each of them so they are symetrical.
There is a few ways to stick them in the ground.
I prefer to take that pvc pipe we used earlier and cut it off in about 1 foot sections and soften up the ground a bit then plant the pvc pipe in a vertical alignement and level it up and tamp all the darit back in around it.
If you happen to have some metal pipe you can simply wack it into the earth and then pull it up empty out the dirt in teh middle and stuff it back into the ground. do this on both sides of the walkway you want to frame. after the pipe is secured in teh earth and pretty stiff, put one end of the rebar into the pipe, repeat at the other end. I then fill the pipes with soem ready mix or some portland cement. It keeps it sturdy, but its not hard to remove should you decide you no longer want this piece in your yard in the future.
You can space the two rebar Us about 1 to 2 feet apart and then wire the top of each arch together. If you were so inclined you cuold run wires back and forth between the two all the way to the ground. Or if you have access you could weld some rebar between the two to form a ladder of sorts for the vine to grow up and around.
Iv done this a few times and it works great. I also like to paint them, normally white with some rust inhibiting spray paint once they are in the ground.
Id include some pics but I dont have any. Even teh finished ones as I do some landscaping work and have doen ti at clients homes instead of my own. I do have one planned for this summer in the next 2 to 3 months and since I started doing this for money I keep good pics and details on the jobs so Ill try to remember to come back and post this when I get around to doing the job.
Im great at coming up with ideas to make somethign work, but crap for typing, cut me some slack on that front :p
mmqchdygg
17 years ago
I'm also using the one CS7580 posted. The pole was $6.xx at HD, and the slats were a little over a buck apiece, so I think the whole thing cost me ~9.xx

I have two to make...

Now to choose WHICH two MGs get to be planted...I went nutso at eBay on that front. OY!
mmqchdygg
17 years ago
The DH hangs out at the local metal junkyard occasionally...you might find something of use there- like my treasure he brought me home: the frame to one of those wrought iron gazebo/screenhouses that are fashionable these days.

homemade trellis - will it work?

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suzyqute

lilamy

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