Texas Gardening: looking for a arch trellis, 1 by TexasPuddyPrint

TexasPuddyPrint wrote:
Luciludog,

Yep...even the more expensive trellises can bite the dust. Wood rots, cheap metal rusts and breaks apart. I have been using livestock fence panels to make all my trellises for the past few years. Most of the ranchers out here use livestock panel to make their holding pens and corrals. The panels are galvanized steel that don't rust or fall apart and very easy to weld onto pipe frame fences.

I buy the livestock panels at McCoy's. If you have a home improvement store or ranch supply store where you live chances are they sell them. Last I saw they were $16 for a panel that is 52 inches wide by 16 feet long. I use bolt cutters (or my dremmel tool - but that a slow cutting process) to clip them into the desired section or length I want. I also clip one piece into about three strips (each 16 feet in length) and easily make a 5 or 6 foot arch out of a 16 foot strip that I spread out to about five feet. I clip the last rung from each side, leaving behind prongs that are about 6 inches long, which I push into the ground to hold it in place.

I also am lucky to have a brother who has a welder and talk him into making stairway trellises as well as bending and welding 3 ft tall triangular obelisks for me. I don't have photos of those as they are holding up my rose bushes. Just imagine a 3 foot tall triangular tomato cage :o) Will try to remember to get a photo of one this week. Am going to have him make a tall obelisk before Spring rolls around. I need something for my rampant Mexican Flame Vines.

Here's a photo of the stairway trellis.

~ Cat

ps...I also started a post today to show various livestock fence panel trellises I have around my yard.

This message was edited Jan 14, 2007 7:58 PM