Trellises are great additions to any garden where you want to grow climbing plants. They will support your plants’ weight and encourage their growth, while also creating a lovely display that will spruce up the look of your garden. If you don’t want to buy trellises, you can manufacture them yourself, which won’t take that much time or effort. In terms of materials, we suggest using bamboo poles, since they’re strong, lightweight, flexible, cheap, and more importantly, renewable. Today, we’re going to teach you how to build a bamboo trellis in three different ways.
3 DIY Bamboo Trellis Ideas
1. Woven Bamboo Trellis
The first DIY bamboo trellis idea that we’ve prepared for you today is one that is extremely easy to accomplish. Moreover, it doesn’t cost a lot of money either. A couple of bamboo poles are literally the only material you need. The size and thickness of the poles are completely up to you. These specs also depend on the kind of plant that you want to grow on your bamboo trellis. If you want to grow heavier plants, you’re going to want to choose thicker poles. This will ensure they won’t collapse under the weight of the harvest.
You just bought the perfect type of poles for your project. Now, it’s time to look at what you have to do in order to make a bamboo trellis out of them. The process is extremely simple, so you’ll have a brand-new trellis in no time. The first thing that you have to do is place the first poles in the ground. Remember to leave a distance of in between 6 and 12 inches from one to the next. The distance between the poles, as well as the number of poles that you’re going to use depend on how you want your trellis to look and what plants you want to grow on it.
After you’ve finished staking the first bamboo poles, you have to prepare the ones you’re going to weave. Make sure that they’re at least 6 inches longer than the distance between the two poles placed at the end of the trellis. Then, start weaving the poles through the ones you’ve staked. The trick to making them stronger is to pass alternatively in front and then behind each pole. You should place the bottom pole that you weave about 6 inches above the ground. Also, when you move on to the second pole, make sure to alternate the front and back weaving with one of the first poles you’ve just woven. The space that you leave between the poles is completely up to you.
If you thought this would be a complicated process, we should let you know that you just accomplished the last step. That’s right, this was everything you had to do. Even if this bamboo trellis might not look like it, it’s actually extremely sturdy. This is something you’ll be able to tell once your plants start growing on it.
2. Fan Bamboo Trellis
The next bamboo trellis DIY that we think you’ll enjoy is a bit more complicated than the first. It requires more than just a couple of bamboo poles, and it might take a while longer to complete. Even so, it’s still exceptionally easy to make and inexpensive. What you’re going to need for this project are some bamboo poles (we advise buying poles of different diameters), some lashing cord, a hand saw, a ruler, and a pencil.
The first thing you’ll have to do is design the trellis. The great thing about this step is that you can use your creativity and come up with different designs. Just make sure you take into account the place where you’re going to place the trellis and the things you could grow on it. Then, take a pencil and a sheet of paper and start drawing. The way the drawing looks is not as important. What’s important is for you to establish the measurements of the bamboo trellis you’re about to build and put them down on paper. This will make it much easier to stick to them once you start to actually build the trellis.
Now, it’s time to put that hand saw to good use and cut the bamboo poles according to the measurements you’ve already established. You can attempt to recreate the trellis in the picture above, the one we called fan bamboo trellis because of its shape. But you can also try a completely different design, especially if you’re feeling particularly inspired and crafty.
An extra tip we have for you is to cut the poles from the bottom half. That’s because they’re going to go into the ground anyway. If you were to do that with the top half, water might collect in the opening. This could cause your poles to rot. Make sure that you cut the top half just above a node, to ensure that water won’t penetrate the pole.
Once you have every bamboo pole measured and cut, lay everything out on a flat surface. The next step it to arrange the poles according to the design you had in mind. Don’t forget to look over the sketch you’ve made in order to stick to the measurements. Use the ruler to check the accuracy of the distance between the poles. Then, use the pencil to mark every place where the poles meet. This is going to help you once you start lashing them together. They won’t move around and disrupt the design of your bamboo trellis.
We’re finally down to the last step of this DIY, which is connecting the bamboo poles using the lashing cord. There are multiple ways in which you can do that, but we recommend the technique in the image below. It will secure the poles so tightly that you won’t have to worry about the construction being unreliable.
3. Thick Bamboo Trellis
Last but not least, we’d like to present you with one of the easiest ways in which you can build your own bamboo trellis. All you need for this DIY are three bamboo poles, some sturdy wire, and a wire cutter. All the poles have to be of the same length since you’ll be tying them up together. The exact length depends on your preference and your needs, but we recommend something around 6 feet.
The first step implies wrapping some wire around the first pole, about 4 inches from its top. Then, place the second pole against the first one and weave the wire so that it captures both of them. After doing the same thing with the third pole (that you’ll connect to the second), all there’s left for you to do is twist the wire in order to make sure it won’t come off and then cut it using the wire cutter.
Once you’ve secured the poles together, place them like you would a tripod. Then, spread each pole in a different direction, creating a bamboo trellis with three legs.
Bamboo Trellis for Sale
Since not everyone is crafty or wants to spend time making their own bamboo trellis, we thought it would also be useful to show you some bamboo trellises for sale. One of the first ones that drew our attention is the Bosmere Expanding Bamboo Trellis that you can order on Amazon for $25.37 and that you can use for different types of plants, due to its capacity to expand. The Sun Bulb Better Gro Bamboo Trellis is perfect for people who want to grow plants in containers and are looking for smaller bamboo trellises that can fit inside the home as well.
This Natural Color Bamboo Trellis has an extremely simple design and a lovely color that will look great in any garden. Finally, for people who want larger trellises, there’s always the option of purchasing the Bamboo Teepee Trellis for Climbing Plants, that as you might have guessed, is shaped like a teepee and can hold quite a lot of plants. Moreover, you can fold it and store it away whenever you don’t need it.
Summing Everything Up
Building a bamboo trellis is not at all a difficult task, as we hope we’ve managed to show in today’s guide. As long as you have a bit of free time and patience, you can design and build your own trellis, instead of buying one. Still, just in case you do prefer buying one to building one, check out the great options we included for you above.
In terms of what you can grow on a trellis, allow us to recommend a couple of plants. For instance, the honeysuckle is a lovely and extremely fragrant plant that looks amazing on trellises. Another flower option would be the trumpet vine, which also grows gorgeous flowers that will attract anyone’s attention. If you’re looking for flowers with an unusual color, then the morning glory ones might be the right option for you. Their blue flowers make a wonderful trellis cover. Or you can go for simple arbors, such as the golden hops. This one is extremely thick and grows quite fast, ensuring that your bamboo trellis will be shown to good advantage.
