2008-08-31

Trellis roundup

Earlier this month I started and then abandoned a post in response to the August Garden Design Workshop at the Gardening Gone Wild blog. This is my attempt to catch up. The GGW workshop for August focuses on trellises and screens.

My home-built redwood trellis shades a sun-exposed window and is planted with Roger's Red California grapes (Vitis californica "Roger's Red") on either side. They turn a nice shade of red before dropping their leaves so they'll give me shade in the summer and color in the fall.

The structural joinery is somewhat basic - butted joints secured with screws, but the lath work is loosely mortised into the uprights. I'll leave the redwood unpainted, but I did lay on a coat of zinc-based (clear) wood preservative to prevent termites as best as possible. I ripped down 2x4s to make a more aesthetically pleasing lumber size for the structural parts. The pieces I cut off became the lath. I feel pretty good about efficiently using my resources on that.

A picture of how it initially looked is here.

I noticed a little out of square problem and I additionally wanted to change out the straight corner bracing for something nicer so a bit later I took it down and reworked it. Curved corner bracing is now showcased at the front of the trellis and the out-of-square problem was eliminated. I also added some lath on top.

A more recent blog post shows how it looks from the far side of the garden after the improvements. (scroll down a bit for the picture).

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