Monday, June 6, 2011

DIY trellis

For the last couple of years we have had a couple of non-hardy plants growing on trellises that we transport back and forth from the greenhouse to the back fence with the changing seasons.  This way we can enjoy some near-tropical climbing and flowering plants in the yard during the summer and keep them alive over the winter.  I mounted brackets on the back fence for reattaching the trellises each year and I have Christie help me move the potted plant, attached to the trellis back and forth.

old_trellis
One of our purchased trellises.  Notice the Passiflora bloom.  More on that later...
This year I had another plant (or two) that I wanted to add to the shuffle, but I was out of trellises.  I knew that I could buy another trellis to match the ones I have, but it would require a trip to Oklahoma City and also would cost a bit of moolah.  And we had some wood lying around...

wood_pile
Veritable smorgasbord of unknown projects
So I decided to just make my own trellis.  It's a pretty simple contraption and it didn't even need to be an exact match to look legit.  After previous unpleasant incidents with the circular saw, I had Christie on hand to help me hold the wood while I was cutting these slivers of wood.  It helps to have a supervisor nearby who reminds you not to do stupid things - like getting your fingers in the way of whirring blades that don't notice the difference in wood and finger.

new_trellis
My new trellis, crafted by moi.
About fifteen minutes of work and we had a new trellis mounted on the back fence with my Flame Vine (Pyrostegia venusta) planted at the base.  (and I still had all my fingers!)

2 comments:

  1. Very cool indeed ! Will you unfasten it to move to the greenhouse when winter arrives?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, the plant and trellis will be moving into the greenhouse for the winter.

    ReplyDelete