how to: 8 foot trellis for your climbing plants

Hi all! Earlier in the summer we built and installed an 8-foot garden trellis in one of our raised beds. I gave you a peek of it back in June. The idea is to use this bed for those plants that climb and vine. This year I am growing cucumbers and squash in this bed.

I was pretty late getting my seeds into the ground this year and will be happily surprised if they produce before the cooler weather starts rolling in. But, one of the cucumber plants is big enough now that it reaches the trellis. I had to give it a little help by lifting the vines off the soil and placing them onto the trellis. From here on out, it will cling to the wires on its own.

Here is how we (mostly the man, of course – he is always building stuff!) constructed this trellis. I did not think to take photos during each step of the construction process, so hopefully the after-photos, descriptions, and arrows will suffice.

Materials:

• 10 (2x4x8) pine boards ($55)
• welded wire fencing ($45) – we had to buy in a 50′ roll and needed only 32′ so there was leftover
• poultry netting 3′ x 25′ ($18) optional
• deck screws – we already had these
• staples – we already had these

Cost: $118

Following are the steps. Please note that much of the construction was done with the boards lying on the ground. Once the structure is assembled or is in a stable state of assembly it can be turned upright – very carefully and with at least two people, it is very heavy and awkward.

1. We started by making one side of the structure. Using deck screws we attached 3 of the boards (the vertical “legs”) to the board that runs horizontally across the top. Before actually screwing the legs to the top board, we cut some shims to insert between the legs and the horizontal board.

One shim needs to be attached for each leg. Precut shims that come in a pack might work as well. The size of the shim really depends on how much or little you want the legs angled out. We knew we would insert this trellis into one of our raised beds and had to work with the dimensions of the bed. That helped us decide on how thick to cut the shims. We found that they are necessary for support.

Then the screws go through all three pieces of wood (leg, shim, top board).

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2. Next we attached a new board horizontally onto the legs approximately 5 feet down from the top. This board needs to be screwed to all 3 legs and will add needed support to the legs. It is best to attach this board on the same side of the legs as the top board (ie the inside of the structure) so that the wire mesh we add later can lie flat on the outside of the structure.

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3. Then we worked on the other side. To the other 3 leg boards, before screwing them to the top board, we attached the midway horizontal board like we did in step 2. At this point they are not attached to the first side at all.

4. Next we attached this set of legs to the top horizontal bar, making sure to include our shims. We screwed the boards to the top bar, same as in step 1, opposite the first set of legs. At this point we have an a-frame structure and have used 9 of the 10 boards.

5.  There are a few other support pieces to attach. Up til now we had not cut any of the boards, except for the shims. We needed support to keep the two set of legs (front and back) stable. Again, given the size constraints we had, we cut four 14.5″ sections from the tenth 2×4. We screwed these horizontally to each pair of opposite legs, with the middle set of legs getting a board on each side. Hope that made sense. The next photos may help.

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6. Now we have the completely assembled trellis, minus the wire fencing material. We cut that into four 8-foot lengths and stapled them to the frame, 2 on the front side and 2 on the back side. We attached them from the top and ran them horizontally, one above the other. We stapled them onto the wood fairly heavily and onto all boards that they came into contact with, for strong support of heavy vining plants and veggies. That leaves 2 feet at the bottom of the trellis with no wire mesh. That is by design: the bottom foot of the trellis will go into the soil and the next foot up will be open, allowing space for planting.

7. One thing we did that was an afterthought was to attach flexible plastic bird netting by stapling sheets of it to the top horizontal board and letting it hang down freely. The idea behind this was that as the plants climb up the trellis, that netting can lie loosely over them, allowing them freedom to grow and providing some protection from deer and other critters. I cut four 6-foot lengths of the netting and we stapled them to the top, 2 per side.

8. The last thing to do is to set the structure into the ground. We put ours into our raised bed, which is 1 foot tall. So our trellis is anchored into the ground 1 foot deep. This is a large, heavy trellis and I would not go any less than 1 foot into the dirt so that it has a good anchor. I was somewhat concerned that even 1 foot might not provide enough stability but so far it has stayed put even through some strong, windy thunderstorms. Your situation may be different, so do what works best to keep it from toppling over.

UPDATE (March 2019) – over the winter, our trellis was actually knocked over during a strong, high-wind storm. Now that it is warmer and the soil is not so frozen, we will reset it into the dirt and likely tie it down. So…if I were to build another trellis, I would probably not be so ambitious and keep it to just 6 feet. That is plenty high enough for most any climbing plants I would grow and I think that height would be more stable, less top heavy. Although I would still probably anchor it in some fashion.

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Safety reminders: if you try this be sure to wear appropriate safety gear and follow all safety precautions while working with tools (powered and manual). Enlist help as needed, especially with lifting the trellis and setting it into the dirt. This trellis is tall and very heavy and can be a bit unwieldy.

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So, there you have it. If you try building one of your own I would love to see pics. I hope the information was pretty clear…if you have any questions or would like more detail, please leave a comment or email me.

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