How to make a do-it-yourself clematis support

There are several important nuances in growing flowers such as clematis. One of them is the rule that the roots of plants should be in the shade, but the bush itself needs constant sunlight. Equally important is the correct placement of clematis – these flowers must be grown vertically, so they will need supports. Vertical gardening is one of the most successful techniques in landscape design, helping to hide the shortcomings of the site, visually expand its boundaries, and emphasize the advantages. You can’t do without beautiful and reliable supports in this matter.

Ideas for making do-it-yourself clematis supports with photos and brief instructions can be found in this article. Popular types of supports, recommended material for their manufacture, fashionable shapes – more on that below.

What are trellis flowers for?

Support, stand for clematis is simply necessary, because this plant belongs to the class of climbers. The length of the lashes or vines of clematis can reach several meters. At the same time, the stems of the flower are thin, herbaceous – they cannot independently support their own weight, not to mention the mass of leaves and flowers.

Clematis supports are needed for several reasons:

1. Creepers of flowers, beautifully laid out on a support, look much more spectacular and aesthetic than whips that have grown on the ground.
2. Vertical gardening is one of the hottest trends in modern landscape design. Not a single trendy style can do without this technique.
3. Supports are vital for clematis themselves, because in a vertical position the flower will be evenly illuminated by the sun, it will be normally ventilated. Rot and fungus, snails or slugs will not appear on leaves and stems.
4. It is much more convenient and easier to care for a plant attached to a support: access to the roots is not difficult, it is easy to apply foliar top dressing and carry out preventive spraying of climbing flowers, and pruning the bush is not difficult.
5. Beautiful supports themselves become a real decoration for the garden. Although clematis bloom throughout the warm season, in winter the site should also look aesthetically pleasing.

Varieties of flower arches

A support for clematis can look like anything – there are no specific standards here. Regarding where and how to fix the vines of flowering clematis, each grower will have his own options and methods. Here the most common and popular ideas:

• blank walls of various buildings on the site (residential building, sheds, veranda, utility rooms);
• poles that serve to protect or fasten various communications (lanterns, electrical wiring boxes, water pipes, etc.);
• window and door openings in a residential building, on the veranda, in the gazebo;
• lattice walls or roofs of summer arbors, pergolas, arches;
• stand-alone stands for clematis or other climbing flowers, which can have absolutely any shape and design complexity, be made of various materials;
• fences and hedges surrounding the site.

Where you can plant clematis is now clear, it remains to decide how to fix the vines of flowers in the right place. In order for the clematis lashes to take the desired shape and grow in a given direction, a special support is needed. Growing shoots of clematis will be attached to the elements of the support or arch with special brackets.

Material of manufacture

With your own hands, a trellis for clematis can be made from absolutely any material. It is absolutely not necessary to spend money on the purchase of a new building material; improvised tools, the remains of parts after repair or construction, and even unnecessary trash are also suitable for work.

The material for making a support for clematis can be any:

• wooden lumber (slats, bars, boards);
• raw wood (willow rods, branches, vines, bamboo);
• metal profile (pipes, fittings, corners);
• various meshes (metal chain-link, plastic meshes, polyurethane-coated structures);

  

• flexible materials (metal wire, nylon cord, fishing line, twine or rope);
• old paneled doors or window sashes (glasses must first be removed from them);
• various rubbish that can be found in every household (backs from playpens, spring nets from beds, rusty bicycles, cart wheels – whatever!).

Arch design

The complexity and type of construction of the support for clematis depends only on the imagination and skills of the performer. If the owner of the site knows how to work with metal, he can make forged supports or use a welding machine in his work. It will be easier to build trellises from wood – you only need a saw and a couple of dozen nails. For the laziest (or for women), the option of making a stand made of mesh or flexible materials is suitable.

The shape of the support can be different:

• pergola made of wood or metal;
• arched structure;
• obelisk (tripod made of wood, vines, metal fittings);
• lattice;
• trillage;
• a unique design in the form of a ball, a polyhedron, the outlines of an animal, a bird, and other interesting shapes.

There are a lot of ideas about making an arch for clematis with your own hands – there would be a fantasy. What kind of support to make in his garden, the owner will be able to decide on his own, based on his own capabilities and goals.

Popular types of tapestries and their manufacture

The easiest and fastest way to make a do-it-yourself clematis support is from a pipe and wire. From an aesthetic point of view, this option may not be the best, but it is very easy to perform.

So, how to make a support for clematis with your own hands in half an hour:

1. Two segments of a metal profile of the same length are taken (this can be a pipe, a corner, an armature). The height of the pillars should not be less than 250 cm (the exact size of the support depends on the variety of clematis, because these flowers can vary greatly in height of the bush).
2. At a distance equal to the width of a clematis bush, the posts are driven into the ground with a large sledgehammer.
3. Now you need to stretch a metal wire between the supports (you can use twine, an electrical cable in the winding). The intervals between the “strings” should be the same and equal to 20-25 cm.

Everything – the simplest support for clematis is ready!

It is also easy to build an arch for clematis from a coarse mesh, weave a frame from a rope, pull a fishing line or twine in the right place – these options do not require much time and special skills.

wall trellis

One of the more complex options is a trellis made of wooden planks, which can be attached to a blank wall of the house. The advantage of such supports lies in their decorative effect. And it’s not too difficult to make a frame out of wood – you will need the simplest tools and fasteners.

The shape of a wooden support for clematis can be absolutely any. Most often, tapestries are made in the form of lattices, but it is possible to manufacture more complex structures: fan-shaped, multi-tiered, window or door.

The cells in such a support should freely pass the leaves of clematis, therefore their minimum size is 5×5 cm. So that the petioles of clematis can cling to the support, and the grower can regularly tie up the shoots of the plant, the dimensions of the cells of the support should not be more than 20×20 cm.

Metal arch

Undoubtedly, metal supports are the most reliable and durable. Such arches are able to withstand the mass of a large bush or even several clematis at once. If the support is regularly painted and corrosion is prevented, the metal structure will last for decades and will be useful for several generations of clematis.

You can build a strong and beautiful support for metal clematis with your own hands, but this requires a welding machine and the ability to use it. If the grower does not have special equipment, he can assemble a metal support from duralumin tubes and chain-link mesh.

Making such a support for clematis will not take much time:

• with the help of a vice and stops, two duralumin tubes of the same length are bent in the form of an arch;
• with stainless steel screws, several metal crossbars are screwed to the tubes;
• the arch is painted with acrylic paint or enamel;
• a sheet is cut from the chain-link mesh, the width of which is several cells greater than the width of the arch;
• the edges of the mesh are bent over the duralumin tube and fixed;
• the finished support is deepened into the ground by at least 40 cm.

Conclusion

With your own hands, you can make any support for clematis. The size and shape of the structure depend on the variety of flowers, they must be compared with the height of the bush, the density of its crown, the number and diameter of inflorescences.

The material for the support can be construction residues, improvised means and even unnecessary things. To build a powerful and reliable frame that can support clematis for more than one year, you should choose high-quality materials: wood, metal, PVC, mesh.