Very nice, Bonnie. Have you picked out the varieties of grapes you're going to grow yet?

Skybird

Thanks, Skybird!

I'm definitely going to try 'Reliance' for a seedless red, but I'd like to have a seedless white as well, and I'm not sure of the best choice there. Any suggestions?

Bonnie

Reliance is the one I'm planning to get to grow up one of my "privacy" lattices on the back fence. Everything I've read about it is good--it's very hardy, good flavor, etc., but I don't know of any specific white varieties to recommend right now. BUT, when I get back to DEN I have a link to a really great site that describes a bunch of different varieties, and I'll link it in the next couple days. It was the site that helped me make the final decision on Reliance! So I'll be back---when I'm home with all my reference material again!

When they get going, we'll be expecting you to show up at one of the Fall Swaps with GRAPES to trade! :-)

I shall return!
Skybird

Hi Bonnie,

Here are the grape links I promised. I dont have time to live-link them allgetting ready to leave on a trip tomorrowbut Ive linked the site I found most useful down at the bottom, and here are a bunch of cut/paste links to other sites to help you with your research. There arent many seedless white table grapes that are truly hardy. I think Himrod might be the best one to try, tho it does sometimes develop some small seeds. Niagara is often sold at garden centers around here, but its not seedless. And Edelweiss sounds good too, but it's not seedless either! Maybe somebody else around here has a/some white table grape recommendations. Anyway, here are the links!

http://www.coopext.colostate.edu/TRA/PLANTS/index.html#http://www.coopext.colostate.edu/TRA/PLANTS/gpvar.html

http://www.specialtycrops.colostate.edu/scp_exp_demo/small_fruit.htm

http://agbiopubs.sdstate.edu/articles/ExEx6037.pdf

http://www.alcasoft.com/pense/grape.html

I only have room for one, and based on my research last year, Reliance seemed to be the "all around" best one for me.

Have fun deciding,
Skybird

Here is a link that might be useful: Minnesota Grape Growers Information

Thanks, Skybird for those links! I had the Minnesota one bookmarked, but checked out those others. I found the same thing you did, that most of the hardy ones seem to be red or blue. Stark Bros., where I got my apple trees this year, carries Reliance, and a couple of seedless white ones, Marquis and Neptune. They are both listed as hardy to zone 5, so I may give one of those a try. I'm also thinking about ordering one of their peach trees too!

I'm wondering what the best way is to attach the vines to those large logs without damaging the posts. The little tendrils on the grapevines won't be long enough to wrap all of the way around, so I'm assuming I will have to help them out a bit. Do you think the vines will make it to the top in one season?

Bonnie

Here is a link that might be useful: Reliance @ Stark Bros

Bonnie,
The Pergola is lovely. I'd like to do one about that size in my side yard "Some Day".

My thought is that unless you are REALLY patient, you might want to reconsider the seedless grapes in favor of something faster and bigger. I'm in Fort Collins on the warm side of zone 5. 6 years ago along my back chain link fence, I planted 2 seedless pink reliance, 2 seedless concord, and 2 of some kind of white seedless, that I ordered from Gurneys. I've taken pretty good care of them (I think), but both the white seedless have never been cane hardy. They keep coming back up from the roots year after year but everything more than a few inches above the ground is totally dead every spring. One of the concord seedless sputtered out after a few years. 1 concord is still going and very gradually getting a little bigger each year, but the main stalk is 4 feet tall, and it only spreads about 3 feet along the fence in each direction, and still seems too puny to even call a grape vine, and no grapes yet. 1 of the Reliance is doing quite well, and after 6 years, it's getting decent sized. It spreads about 10 feet along the fence in each direction and I've gotten at least a modest amount of grapes each of the last 3 years. Last year it had quite a bunch, but this year only a few, and this spring it pretty much died back to the main stalk which is about 6 feet now. Not sure why it died back. It hasn't done that before. The other Reliance is also gradually getting bigger but at a slower rate. It's about half the size of the good one. My best grape vine of the original 6 might cover 1/4 of your big Pergola at this point after 6 years growth.

Even so, I'm doubtful I would have been able to get it to train up those big logs unless you put up some kind of wire mesh or something the vine tendrils can grab to enable it to climb. I get the feeling the tendrils are not going to be very happy trying to grab anything much bigger around than my finger, or maybe my thumb.

From my own experience, I've started to think of growing grape Vines a little more like growing an oak shade tree. It's definitely a long term investment. There was some old Cary Grant movie about the California wine country, where a big wild fire sweeps through the family Vineyards, and all that's left is these blackened stumps through the field, and the family is decimated by the loss. My impression of the movie was that it was going to take a decade to recover, and I remember thinking at the time I watched it, that I didn't understand, because surely they could grow new vines in a year or two. Now I understand. I think it must be more like starting over to grow an orchard after such a fire.

I'm not an expert on vines. But I'm thinking unless you're very patient you might want to consider something more like some trumpet flower vine, or may be honeysuckle. I'm trying a couple of each of those on a different fence. After 2nd summer the trumpet vines are 6 feet tall and starting to spread, and one of the Honey suckle is a good 9 feet tall and spreading quite a bit. I recently saw a honeysuckle vine that had to be 20 feet tall and 30 feet wide, so I know sometimes these can get real big. They smell nice too.

I probably shouldn't say it, because someone is bound to cry foul, but if I was in the foothills or mountain country, and if I didn't want to wait 8 or 10 years to cover that trellis, I think I would plant one Virginia Creeper right at the base of each of those two big outer logs. I think it will climb up the log pretty well, and I bet it will cover the Pergola in 3 to 5 years rather than a decade. ( I better duck because the rotten tomatoes are probably headed my way)

By the way, where did you get those massive steel things the posts are sitting on? If "Someday" ever arrives, I like the idea of doing something like that rather than putting the post in the ground where eventually it will rot no matter how many chemicals they pump into it.

Good luck,
Bruce

Thanks for sharing your experience with me, Bruce!

Well, based on your experience, maybe I will rethink using a white grape, unless someone else chimes in with a more encouraging experience. At least the Reliance that me and Skybird are considering seems to do fairly well. I've actually thought about using some type of annual flowering vine the first couple of years, until the grapevines get estabished, but I'm afraid of creating too much competition for nutrients, and having the more agressive annual vines choke out the grapes.

Oh, and DH had those metal brackets custom fabricated by a welder friend of his. That engineer's brain of his comes in handy sometimes!

Bonnie

I should have guessed about those brackets. Apparently we engineers have a tendency to all think alike. Well, tell DH I was pretty impressed. Good luck!

Bruce

Very nice Bonnie!!

I also appreciate the chatter about grapes as I plan to grow some next spring.

I have Virginia Creeper, 5 years old, along a split rail fence, with the "chicken wire" to keep dogs in the yard, and it grows VERY well. I pruned it this spring to restain the fence and actually hoped to kill it (I'd prefer a flowering vine), but NO way to kill this. It came back stronger then ever - ha ha. Anything so resilient deserves to live, so no more me trying to do it in. The first year when I planted it, the vines didn't grow too much, but I don't have them on their own drip emitters, and I probably planted them in clay. The next year, however, they took off. The tendrils cling to my brick and whatever else they can reach. Although I hacked and hacked them last spring, they did bear a few berries that sank in water and you are welcome to them. I recently inter-planted some flowering vines but noticed that the V.C. tendrils really grip the young vines and may just bully them and out compete. I hope it doesn't happen, so I can have some flowers mixed in with those crazy vines!!

For a climbing support, you might want to try using a grape vine wreath. Buy the largest possible and unwind it, then wrap around the post. I did this for a natural arbor made from tree posts for my grapes. The grape vine wreath had been outside for 4 years and still looked new, sturdy. Would last quite a while until a vine grew and wouldn't take away from the natural look of your posts.

Oooooh, Emagineer, I really like that idea! I think that would look great! What kind of grapes are you growing?

A&H'smom, I'm not too interested in things that don't bloom ... unless it's something edible : )

Grapevine wreath, awesome idea, emagineer. Did you have to soak it for a while so as not to break it? Now I have to figure out where I can use it.

Billie