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diy plant trellis

Broken can be beautiful, part 2

I had intended to write this post a lot sooner, but thank you to endometriosis, I have been in miserable amounts of pain the last two weeks. Usually the only thing that distracts me from pain is creating with my hands, this time all I could do was be still. Two weeks later, one ruptured ovarian cyst, and discovery of three more waiting to be an issue, I feel I can finally attempt to be my "search for beauty in unexpected places" self, which is really difficult to do when you can't stand or breathe comfortably.

The beauty of these blog posts, is that they are a way for me to vent my frustrations, spin it to a positive, and be able to look back and see how far I have come. I do not have a jump to recipe button, just short words and photos. I know that no one wants to hear complaining, but this is all part of my journey and search to make peace with my body.

Before all this happened, I went walking through the woods at my parents house. I saw vines suffocating the trees- Virginia Creeper is a really fast growing, invasive vine, that usually succeeds at suffocating its victims. It is fairly easily to pull it off the trees, almost satisfying. But the roots run along the surface of the woods and can quickly reach every tree. I try to remove all of it when I see it, seeing the trees struggle makes me feel like I cant breathe. During the fall and winter season, I take those vines and turn them into wreath frames. They tangle ever so nicely, and when fresh they don't break easily.

You can easily go save the woods, and make something useful and beautiful, as long as you are careful to not spread the vine. I have been told by conservationists that you need to get the vines out, put them in plastic, and throw them in the garbage so that they don't spread

. plant trellis

I had this six ft trellis that I ordered on Amazon in a two pack, and at the cost, it never dawned on me it would be lightweight and breakable plastic that would not survive the first wind storm that knocked it over. All the supports were cracked, but I do like the height. I wanted to conceal the broken pieces, make it strong, and give my climbing plants something to grab on to and wrap around. This was the amount of vines I collected that day, you have to sculpt them when they are freshly picked. Keep in in a plastic bag overnight if you cant get to it same day. They will crack and break if you let them dry out. Make sure to do this on a surface you will be able to clean everything up easily, not spreading this vine. I tried to rip off the majority of the green leaves and wrap those in plastic right away, and laid out all the vines by length.

trellis for plants

I started at the lowest support bracket, you don't want these vines going all the way to the ground and give them any possibility to spread. I used cut wire pieces on each of the four corners so that it wouldn't slip around, and then started weaving.

plant trellis

You can see that I figured out to remove the green leaves later on, don't make the same mistake. They will die off, and I removed them later. I the started tying the vines with wire to the other four support braces. Once those were done, I just started weaving and filling in spaces.

climing plant trellis climbing plant trellis diy

I didn't want it too full, I wanted space for clematis to be able to grab on to, and climb up. climbing plant trellis diy

I was happy with the amount of vine at this point, and did my best to remove green leave, but there still were a few.

diy climbing plant trellis

I moved the trellis into my "pond garden" I stuck the legs in about four inches. Clematis will soon be creeping up it, and I will be able to support tie my hollyhocks, that get over eight feet, and help them stand straight up and not fall over.

diy climbing plant trellis

I would think that in a month, you wont be able to see this trellis as it will be full of plants. I spared the landfill of another broken online purchase, I saved many trees from suffocation, and created a support system in my garden. It took an hour of walking in the woods, and a hour to wrap all the vines. I made something I consider beautiful, and useful out of an invasive tree killer. I am happy with it. I have another area in the woods to clean up and want to make globes out of them, and add solar lights to them.