Supplies to build a garden trellis from collected and reused materials:

• fallen sticks and branches from the neighbourhood &
• cut lengths of old t-shirts/clothes.

Sometimes impatience is a good friend when it comes to solutions for the garden.

There’s a dull length of colorbond fence near the compost bin. It’s often shaded, receiving only snippets of direct sun. In the early days of the lemongrass shooting up, it used to visually cover a good chunk of that fence. But it has never grown so big since. (And given some other changes that include mild allergies, the lemongrass is going to move anyway!)

So I have known for a while now that I want an evergreen vine or creeper to cover this portion of the fence. Finding one that will suit the shady spot will be one challenge (here’s hoping Betel Leaf plants from Mudbrick Cottage Herbfarm will do the trick).  But the first was getting a trellis up…on a budget of $0.

Part of me didn’t want to buy anything for the sake of not wanting a store-bought thing to rust or wear in my garden. The other part of me just needed to be thrifty.

Remembering that Isaac had done a stellar job of collecting sticks for me once before for an art project, I gave him this new mission. So once he had found and fetched some fallen (eucalyptus, I think) sticks and branches from our bushy neighbourhood, it was my turn to get to work building this wonky-looking but nevertheless sturdy trellis. This is the how:

Group sticks in order of size; choose upright and vertical lengths first.

Place the upright sticks in some dug-out holes at the desired location. Make sure the distance apart will suit the length of your chosen vertical sticks. Then the holes refilled with soil & compost. If, like me, you can’t dig very deep in these areas, extra support pieces can be dug in at angles and tied with the t-shirt ties to the uprights for sturdiness.

Tie the vertical sticks in place with the t-shirt ties.

Attach the remaining sticks diagonally to the frame with the t-shirt ties. Starting with the longest distances required, then filling in with the shorter distances. The natural wiry shape of the sticks makes it a bit more interesting to create the criss-cross trellis pattern, as they can weave among one another in whatever manner suits the shape of the sticks.

Here’s the best thing about this trellis (in my opinion): It’s basically compost! I don’t have to worry about it degrading, as it’s all natural and biodegradable. The sticks are from the areas around our house, so it’s not bringing in a new material there. And the old t-shirt is made from organic cotton (from my favourite online t-shirt shop, Fairtees…there may even be fabric ties in there from an old crop top from Thunderpants too!). So the whole trellis is safe to compost, should it ever come down.

Sure, it’s not perfect. But I think with the natural materials, it blends nicely into the plantscape.