Or, you can drill holes for wires running horizontally across the masonry (you are going to have to drill to fasten trellis). If you use long vine-eyes to pass the wire through, you can keep the rose several inches away from the walls - vital to maintain good ventilation. In my opinion, trellis causes more problems than it solves as the canes invariably loop under the timber or metal trellising. It was originally known as treillage and was designed to be freestanding so plants could be worked from both sides. Simple plastic covered galvanised wire will be utterly discreet, practically invisible and is much easier to work with at pruning time. I can give you a more thorough explanation if you want to go down this road.

The veining and patterns will be 80-99% the same in a bundle. 80-99% is not “the same” when comparing slab 101 to slab 112. It may be virtually identical in 101 and 103. Depends on the stone. Because of how the block is cut, those veins reverse direction in sequence. The adjacent polished edges are created for less damage in shipping, and to gain bookmarking pieces. And you may prefer the Left sequence slabs vs the Right sequence slabs. A vein in a block sequence can change radically as its sawn on some stones. 4 pieces bookmatched. 2 pieces Moving slabs is a lot of work. They are VERY heavy. If this is a wholesale yard, it’s slways best to have your fabricator grease the way first with a phone call so that they know you are serious. And not just out for an afternoon’s entertainment. Yes, some people go stone shopping with no intent to purchase. Don’t ask. Make an appointment for that type of work, so that they can be sure to have enough people on hand ready to devote to the time it will take. Because it will take a couple of hours if they have to move a bunch. And that is beyond the typical moving just the top slab that most stone yards will be willing to do for a walk in. If the top slab is great, there is no reason to see the whole bundle. If there is a flaw, or the vein isn’t positioned exactly right, asking them to move more in the sequence is fine. But asking for every slab in the bundle moved just so you can see all 16 is way overboard. After you see the first 2, you can see how that stone’s veins are developing through the block. If it’s moving up or down, etx. If you are very picky, it’s always best to make the final selection appointment WITH your fabricator. Cutting around some things may be fine. Or not. But you need the guy there who will be doing the cutting, if you have something special, or something fussy, in mind. And he needs to know your measurements before you pick slabs. Nothing worse than thinking you have the 109” length that you need, only to have it be 2” short because it’s not really square or has a ragged edge. Let the fabricator have input when shopping if you need something special. Be prepared to pay for that time.

Your tile has seams. No reason to think that this is any different. Just change your perspective. It's not like you're trying to make it look like the entire shower was carved from a single block of stone, right? It's really pretty and nobody is going to ding you for having a seam.

In my albeit limited experience I went to the stoneyard and picked out the slabs I wanted and they were marked with my name and held for pickup by my fabricator. I am in Los Angeles and that is the business model with the stone yards selling directly to consumers although I went with my designer so technically they sold to her. As others have stated I walked around the yard and if I saw marble that I vaguely liked they would take out slabs for me to inspect. I am presuming that the slabs that were leaning against each other in smallish lots of 5 or so were all from the same lot. However these varied significantly and so I picked the ones I liked the most. I didn't do this but I have learned from these boards that theoretically one should go to the fabricator and approve the templating. That might have alerted you to how the distinctive marbling might have disappeared in some way. My marble was purposely very muted as I didn't want marbling or a lot of movement so it really wasn't necessary for my design anyway. Even if I had known about templating approval there really would have been no difference in the layout or end result.