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Wire or Wooden trellis

wildlife, gardening, environment, Rural living, Pets and Vets
mc2fool
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Wire or Wooden trellis

#430511

Postby mc2fool » July 26th, 2021, 3:24 pm

For climbing roses, honeysuckle and jasmine to go up a brick wall (part of the building)...

Wire or wooden trellis? Pros, cons, opinions, please. Thanks. :)

bungeejumper
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Re: Wire or Wooden trellis

#430523

Postby bungeejumper » July 26th, 2021, 4:06 pm

Honeysuckle has a twisted mind of its own, and it can break a wooden trellis once it becomes old and woody. But otherwise I always prefer wood, just because it looks so much more pleasant, and also more 'structural' on a wall.

There are a lot of wooden trellis patterns around - large mesh, small mesh, diagonal or vertical/horizontal alignment. And some in fancy shapes, of course. If it isn't proofed or tanalised, give it a dose of woodworm or anti-rot preservative (or both) before you install it. After all, it's got to last as long as your plants, once they're threading through it. :D

BJ

Dod101
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Re: Wire or Wooden trellis

#430535

Postby Dod101 » July 26th, 2021, 5:46 pm

mc2fool wrote:For climbing roses, honeysuckle and jasmine to go up a brick wall (part of the building)...

Wire or wooden trellis? Pros, cons, opinions, please. Thanks. :)


Well they all have a mind of their own but I would suggest some form of trellis as it will give more substance and make it easier early in their life at least to 'pin them down'. The advantage I find of your choices of plants is that they can be pruned and kept under some control without losing the flowers.

I have just had to cut back and then dig out a clematis which is extremely vigorous but which had taken over a Weigela bush and if you trim them back you tend to lose the flowers the following year. I have not found that with your choices, but some form of trellis I think is best. It will probably disappear as your plants grow. That seems to me to be the only benefit of wire, that it is not very visible.

Dod

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Re: Wire or Wooden trellis

#430543

Postby Allitnil » July 26th, 2021, 6:18 pm

Wood
    - generally looks better before the plant has smothered it
    - will eventually rot and the plant will likely fall off the wall (*)
    - pre-made trellis comes in many attractive designs and are easy to fix, but these are often made with quite thin bits of wood which will rot quicker and might not be strong enough for a vigorous honeysuckle or rose
* - last year we had a trellis made of 2" x 1" wood and supporting a wisteria collapse as the result of a combination of rot & a summer storm. Not an easy job to refix given that my wife wouldn't allow me to cut the wisteria back!

Wire
    -cheap
    - can be to any design
    - as long as the guage is reasonable, it will last as long as the weight of the plant doesn't exceed the capacity of the fixings
    - plants might not attach all that well to it so more likely to need frequent tying in (tying in to vertical or steeply diagonal wires is unlikely to work)
    you will need to drill a lot more holes in the wall as every end node will require a separate anchor point

If time & money is no object, then I would go for a custom trellis made from lengths of tanalised wood of at least 1" x 1". Remember to thoroughly soak any cut ends in preservative (also treat the holes you drill!). That way you have a strong structure that should last up to 20 years with any luck, can be to whatever design you like and is more likely to promote a natural look for the plant than one that has been severely tied in.

mc2fool
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Re: Wire or Wooden trellis

#430703

Postby mc2fool » July 27th, 2021, 1:02 pm

Thanks for the replies folks.

This is for the small self-managed block of flats I live in (and am the gardener general dogsbody for), and inevitably the members of the residents' committee have differing views, most being around "look". One would prefer no support structure at all and is suggesting lead headed nails, while others are divided between wire and wood.

I'm in the wood camp, mostly 'cos when we had the garage block roof redone a couple of years back I saved all the old battens thinking they'd be good for a trellis! 8-) There are a few that are 50mm x 25mm (2"x1") and a lot more that are 35mm x 18mm. The latter ones are rough on one side, so may need (?) to be planed. And they'll need to be painted with outdoor wood treatment ... any recommendations? (Please, not creosote!)

Itsallaguess
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Re: Wire or Wooden trellis

#430708

Postby Itsallaguess » July 27th, 2021, 1:18 pm

So there's our gap in the market folks - a nice looking wooden trellis, incorporating an underlying wire skeleton holding it all together, and offering a combination of aesthetics and longevity...

The wood looks great whilst your plants get established and grow coverage and depth, and then by the time the wooden bits age and disintegrate naturally, the underlying wire framework maintains the plant position against the wall and helps to support the elderly wooden sections....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

AsleepInYorkshire
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Re: Wire or Wooden trellis

#430718

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » July 27th, 2021, 2:24 pm


bungeejumper
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Re: Wire or Wooden trellis

#430721

Postby bungeejumper » July 27th, 2021, 2:28 pm

mc2fool wrote:I'm in the wood camp, mostly 'cos when we had the garage block roof redone a couple of years back I saved all the old battens thinking they'd be good for a trellis! 8-) There are a few that are 50mm x 25mm (2"x1") and a lot more that are 35mm x 18mm. The latter ones are rough on one side, so may need (?) to be planed. And they'll need to be painted with outdoor wood treatment ... any recommendations? (Please, not creosote!)

Yeah, but. It'll take you three days to make your trellis, and hundreds of nails, and all that measuring and swearing. And then when you've finished, somebody will come along and say, "did you mean that bit to be wonky?" :P

Versus taking your twenty quid to Screwfix or B&Q and getting it finished the same day. The battens will come in handy for standing the trellis off from the wall. Yes, I know that Forest panels won't last forty years like yours will, but they're not bad these days. They're "dip treated", not tanalised, but the only thing I'd add would be a splash of https://www.amazon.co.uk/Everbuild-EVBL ... 007RA1TSI/ .

BJ

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Re: Wire or Wooden trellis

#430748

Postby 88V8 » July 27th, 2021, 4:16 pm

If it's an old building with lime mortar so you can drive in vine eyes, then wire.
Wires can be sent under and over windows, cover the whole wall.
Lead nails are also useful on lime, but only while the plants are young and skinny.

If the building is more modern and has cement mortar so you would have to drill the wall, probably not worth the bother, and in that case, wood.
You can treat it with clear preservative, or my favoured outdoor treatment is a 50/50 of boiled linseed oil and turps.
By the time it rots it will be someone else's problem.

V8

mc2fool
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Re: Wire or Wooden trellis

#430761

Postby mc2fool » July 27th, 2021, 5:04 pm

bungeejumper wrote:Yeah, but. It'll take you three days to make your trellis, and hundreds of nails, and all that measuring and swearing. And then when you've finished, somebody will come along and say, "did you mean that bit to be wonky?" :P

Yeah but that's a lot more fun than just spending money at Screwfix. :D

88V8 wrote:If it's an old building with lime mortar so you can drive in vine eyes, then wire.
Wires can be sent under and over windows, cover the whole wall.

Built in 1978 and I've long ago given up trying to put anything into the mortar -- it's harder to drill than the brick!

There'll be no "whole wall", it'll stop at around one storey high as that's as high as I feel comfortable on a ladder to prune it! It's actually two walls, one 2m wide and one 3m wide, that'll be covered.

As the plants are new in the ground this year I'm tempted to not make an actual trellis but just add horizontal battens, spaced off the wall, as needed as the plants grow, with regular "blocks" behind them to provide sideways support to the plants. Is there actually any need for full length vertical battens?

Nimrod103
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Re: Wire or Wooden trellis

#430819

Postby Nimrod103 » July 27th, 2021, 10:50 pm

bungeejumper wrote: "did you mean that bit to be wonky?" :P


It's not wonky, it's rustic.

IMV wood trellis against a wall is a bit unneccessary. I used to have a small panel, but it eventually rotted away. One of the issues is that the list of climbers given by the OP require regular hard pruning, and I think this is easier if the plants are growing up wider spaced wires, rather than winding themselves around more closely spaced wooden battens.


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