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Strictly speaking, a trellis is a frame of light wood strips crossing each
other, with open spaces between the strips, particularly such a frame
as is used for supporting vines. However, we shall show in the succeeding pages a number of trellises which are built of heavier wood.
Further, we shall advise you to take any design and improve on it as
you will, building it of heavier or lighter wood, or repeating it several
times to make a wide screening-fence trellis on which growing vines will
complete the cover-up during the outdoor season. Perhaps you will want
to make two units and set them at an angle to give a three-dimensional
quality to the trellis, lending an individual air to your front door or
wherever you will be using it. But as you improvise be sure that you
make the trellis fulfill its primary function, that of supporting vines.
. . . which one, where to place it, what to plant on it
In choosing a trellis, you will naturally start with the site where it is
to be placed. This will govern the size, the design, and what you will
plant to grow on it. In turn, what you are going to plant will influence
the choice, because heavy vines require a heavy trellis, twining vines
or vines with tendrils need a different kind of support, and so on. All
these factors are tied in together, and all must be considered and worked
out before the trellis is built.
Annual vines, as anyone who has grown morning glories can attest,
may become quite heavy with the quick rush of growth in a single
season. They often break the fragile strings which hopeful gardeners use
as support, up which the vines twine so gaily when they are slender
young plants. Perennial and woody vines also tend to become quite
heavy with age and exert great pressures on any structure on which they
climb, sometimes pulling roofs apart and even causing weak structures
to collapse. You can see, therefore, that there is much more to choosing,
planning, and building a trellis than would appear at first sight. On the
other hand, there is nothing more calculated to give any house that
final look of "home" than a bit of greenery twining around the door, on a
trellis which is as good to look at in winter as it was in summer.
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