You TOO Can Build Your Own Trellis in just 30 Minutes!

I've been looking for a trellis for a climbing rose I planted back in May.  As one might suspect, it did quite a bit of growing since May and is now in big need of a trellis.  A big, substantial, tall, won't be bullied by a monster rose-type trellis.

But here I have had several problems and no, none of them have been from laziness.  I know, its always a possibility, but not this time.

First, as do a lot of houses in coastal flood plains, my house sits on 3 ft. tall brick piers.  This makes my doors, windows etc etc, (other visual clues) 3 feet taller than one would suspect just by a casual glance.   Basically, meaning a 6 foot trellis just ain't gonna cut it, it will just look stupid from the back step only 3 feet higher.  Not only that, but the climbing rose itself grows along the lines of 15 feet or so.  I needed a taller trellis than I could find available around here, which was 86 inches, for those of you who are counting. (7 ft 1 inch, for those who can't do math).

Also, the space I'm trying to fill against my house really needed a 3 foot wide trellis.  Not 2, not 4, not a fan.  3 foot wide.  Apparently nobody else in the world has a commercial need for this product.

And finally, online I found a few in the 96 inch plus area that I was hoping for, but they were 100 dollars plus shipping!  I am waaaay too cheap for that.   So finally fed up with fighting that rose to get out of the back door I drove myself to Lowe's and built me a trellis.   It was a piece of cake and I'll never buy a trellis again in my life.

Here's what you will need:

*5 pieces of 1x2x8 (or x10 or whatever height you want) in cedar (or any rot resistant wood)
*a drill, with a drill bit
*16 aluminum or stainless steel 1.5 inch-ish screws.  Aluminum/stainless or you'll be pulling out rusted ones within the year.
*tape measure
*a cat or child to make the process 3 times as long and more dangerous for all involved

You won't even need a saw, because what you are going to do is walk your 5 sticks over to the saw area in Lowe's, bat your eyelashes, and ask the guy there to take 2 of those pieces and cut each of them into two 3ft pieces, 2 six inch pieces, and whats left will be a one foot piece (which you will not use but maybe your dog will like).

The guy will probably smile and ask you a stupid question such as whether or not you know to use aluminum/stainless steel screws.  Stick your tongue out at him.  How dare he. You know this. Just because you are wearing very cute 3 inch heels and awkwardly dragging 10 ft boards around in Lowe's does not mean a damn thing.

Take all this home.  Total cost: $15.68 (assuming you don't have to buy a drill)
Lay out your design on your living room floor. Such as this:

Take a tape measure and decide the midway point (for me at 1.5 feet) and decide how much side overhang you want (for me it was 4 inches), for you it might be none.  Line up your four 3 foot long cross boards and draw a line through all of them where those 3 upright stakes are going.. straight is best but close enough is close enough.

Now take your drill and put your drill bit in and drill pilot holes in the middle of each line.  Do not drill into your hardwood floor.  It is tempting, but much better in the end if you avoid it.

Repeat the process for the 3 longer pieces - just don't drill all the way through.  Figure out where you want the cross boards to go and then measure it out, stickem together, draw a line and then drill.   Make sure you leave at least a good foot at the bottom to sink your trellis into the ground.  You could measure each one of these out individually but its a total waste of time.  The lines work just as well.

Once all drilled get out your trusty screws and if you haven't messed up all the holes will align and you will have a nice pretty cedar trellis.   I would suggest securing the top and bottom cross bars first to make the thing easier to square. Unless you are going for that drunk parallelogram look, of course.

I attached the 6-inches pieces to the back of the uprights to allow me to attach this to my house without having the trellis directly beside the structure.  Into those I'm going to screw in a hook screw which is going to attach to the side of my house with a matching eyehook screw.  If you don't live in a windy place and never get hurricanes, I guess you can skip this step all together.  I take no chances here.

I painted mine with 2 coats of leftover latex white paint so that it matches the architecture of my house and the white picket fence, but being as it is cedar, if left alone it will get that pretty weathered look in a year or so.

So a reminder why we are doing this:  similar substantial trellis, if you could find it: $100++, this structure: $15.68 plus one half an hour.  That, folks, is $85 dollars that can be spent on plants, while telling significant other you finally bought that trellis.  And no, you don't know how that drill hole in the living room floor got there.

Carjacking By A Lady Named Banks

Last year, while visiting dozens of houses, looking for the perfect one to buy, I happened upon so many lovely arbors, trellises and fences covered in white, pink or yellow blooms cascading all over the place.    They perched from atop thorny limbs woven into many a gate I tried to peer through, and they climbed up columns holding up centuries old double porches (piazzas in Charleston-speak).  They called softly to me from unseen gardens, their fragrance mixed with the humid air for hundreds of steps.   Ah, so rosey.

But I am a beginning gardener.  One with a love of many sun loving flowers and limited space in which to grow them.   A quick reading about basic rose care, and it was settled.  No thorny, mildewy, buggy, flower wilting, fertilizer sucking temperamental roses for me.  Nope, I don't love them that much. 

Then something happened today when I stopped by to get some potting soil to fill up my two monster patio pots.  This Lady Banks Rose ended up in my passenger side car seat.  I swear I didn't put her there.  She tried to hide herself under my jacket, and frankly I wouldn't have even noticed her there except in an effort to make it safely home she put her seatbelt on, and well, I was suspicious.  My jacket is one of those wild children - never uses his seatbelt.

So her cover blown, she pulled out a water pistol and said "Drive, or you'll have root rot where the sun don't shine." I'm sure you all can imagine my utter shock.  At the next light, I nervously glanced around elsewhere in the car to see if any other secret passengers were about.  Sure enough, an entire bag of caladium bulbs were hiding on the floorboard!   The outrageous audacity of some plants, right?

For all of you who are now a bit concerned for me, no worries, I made it home totally dry, albeit with a new found understanding of the southern magazine, "Garden & Gun."

You might be a WEED if...

There is an oft commented saying about weeds that goes something like, "A weed is just a plant or flower in a place that you don't want it to be." 

YOU might call a stray cosmos or 4 o'clock a weed all you like my friends, but they are not WEEDS, with all capital letters.  There is a distinct difference between a WEED and a misguided flower, and to help everyone clarify this difference, I though we could use the Jeff Foxworthy identification process.

So.
You might be a WEED if...you are totally indifferent if its cold, hot, muddy, dry, sandy, clayish, sunny, dark, windy, humid, gritty, lacking oxygen, lacking nitrogen, the place is on fire and it's hailing -  all at the same time.

If you feel pretty certain you have a fighting chance of establishing roots on a rolling bowling ball in the trunk of a 1985 Cutlass Sierra...you just might be a WEED.

You might be a WEED if you can overwinter 128 years in a row waiting for that one day when someone makes the error of uncovering you and 85,000 of your closest friends.

You might also be a WEED if you tend to grow a 5 inch by 10 inch root ball before actually sprouting anything lest someone might see you.

And if you can grow this rootball and sprout your first leaf in the time it takes the average person to use the bathroom, you just might be a WEED.

If you can see your entire family tree when you stand on your tippy-stems, and as a matter of fact you're still connected to them, then you might be a redneck...er.. and a WEED.

And finally, you might be a WEED if you can have your starter leaves look, at any single moment, like every single other kind of plant that is lovingly planted in the garden until you grow more than 5-6 leaves, and which point you sprout out of that 'fake' plants stomach like an Aliens baby and eat all the actual garden plants in sight.  You are definitely a WEED if  you keep doing this.  Face it.

Instead of trying to feel better about weeds by calling them misplaced flowers, I think Doug Larson has done them justice in saying:

A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.

Now THAT is true.