How to Make a Wire Trellis

an easy, inexpensive DIY job for your climbers

In last week’s post, I talked about how, because our garden is so visible from our kitchen and dining room, I planted evergreen climbers to cover the new fencing around much of the garden, especially the parts most visible from inside. In a few short years, the combination of star jasmine, clematis and muehlenbeckia has completely concealed the fencing outside of our dining room and the climbing roses have reached well above the top of the fence.

Before we cleaned up and paved the back garden a few years ago, I planted a little bed of jasmine and clematis outside the dining room because I wanted to give it a head start. It’s the view I see both from the dining table and when I’m hanging in the kitchen so I wanted to minimise the amount of time we’d have to see fencing (which I’d painted black) rather than foliage.

To allow the climbers to climb up the fencing and wall, I needed a trellis of sorts. On one fence, we used a leftover trellis that had been in the garden when we moved in. Everywhere else, I determined we needed a wire trellis and that this was one of those smaller jobs I could handle myself.

part of my DIY wire trellis, 3 years apart

And, despite my less than perfect batting average regarding which DIY jobs are better left to the professionals, this one was actually really straightforward and ended up costing little more than a bit of time. Most importantly, three years in, it has stood the test of time (and weight of growing climbers); it’s proved the perfect, inexpensive way to install a sturdy wire trellis for your climbers on timber or masonry.

In the beginning, I had to tie all my climbers to the trellis using garden twine and the like. So when you’re just getting started, plan to have something like that on hand to tie in your climbers. Now, I simply tie in my roses as they grow after being hacked back in early spring. In some places, the evergreen climbers have grown so much that they’ve fully taken over the fencing and need to be chopped back consistently throughout the growing season. The wire trellis is, in most places, completely invisible below a thick layer of green. Just as I planned.