Makeshift Appalachia: DIY Morning Glory Trellis

Hello Appalachia!

     I got a little bit of free time today, so I decided to try something new. If there is one thing we're known for here in the mountains, it's ingenuity and making due with what we have (bathtub gin, anyone?). So I thought I'd add a new feature to the blog called Makeshift Appalachia where I show you how to do a DIY project to help you out on your Appalachian journey.

    I dabble in just about every craft known to man/Pinterest. I knit, crochet, weave, sew, embroider, cook, scrapbook, and anything else you think of. My latest obsession is planting flowers. I live in an apartment in the less rural part of West Virginia, so I don't have a yard I can dig around in. What I do have is a porch, tons of containers, and an 8 pound bag of potting soil. I've got 16 different pots right now with sunflowers, lilies, flytraps, marigolds, sea shell flowers, and many more. What I've been most excited about is my morning glories. And if you're familiar with them, you know they like to climb. Like I said, I'm limited to growing on my porch, so I had to get creative. After a little digging around I finally came upon a tutorial on YouTube showing survivalists how to make a net. I took that idea and turned it into a temporary trellis for my morning glories.

Before something damaged some of the leaves.

     So if you want to plant morning glories or other vines with minimal space, or if you want to know how to make a net to trap some food and/or a man, check out this tutorial for a DIY trellis.

         You'll need some sort of string, scissors, and tacks or nails. I used hemp rope, which you can get at Wal-Mart for about $5. You also need to decide where you're going to plant them, ideally, between two porch posts. Since my porch has already been occupied, I'm going to show you how to do it using two chairs and some yarn, just for demonstration. Here we go.

I'm sure you have something like this laying around the house.

Step 1: Secure a strand between your posts, and ignore my messy craft room.

You can use tacks for extra security on your porch posts.

Step 2: Cut some lengths of string that will be about twice as long as you want your net to be. Fold them in half, and lay the folded strands over the horizontal one. Tie a slip knot with your folded string. I'm using two different colors of yarn so you can see what I'm doing a little better. 

Do this across the width of horizontal strand. Space them about 2-2.5 inches apart. 

Step 3: Take the inner stand from reach one, and use those two to tie a slipknot. 

Do this across the width of your horizontal strand. It should look like a row of triangles.

Do the exact same thing for the next row. Place the inner strands together and tie a slip knot. This should give you a row of diamonds. 

Just keep repeating this until your net is the length you want. Try to make your diamonds the same size. It tends to get a little wonky in some places, but your flowers won't mind. 

When you've reached the desired length, you need to take the strands of the bottom corners and secure them to your post or your banister or something. If you grew up in the hills, you'll be able to rig it to your liking. 

Add another horizontal strand where you want the bottom of your trellis to be. 

Tie the long ends to this horizontal strand, all the way across. 

And there you have it. You can always take the store-bought route and get some chicken wire if you want something a little prettier, but I think this works just fine. 

The final step is to set your potted morning glories beneath it. I would suggest tying them down if they're up on a banister. I staked a few BBQ skewers in the pots so the flowers could climb right up the skewers and onto the trellis. This was a very successful endevour for me. 

The only downside to this method is that your morning glories are now outside for good. You can't move them once they're woven around the trellis. This most recent cold spell may have nipped several of my leaves and one of my plants looks awful, but the stems are still green and springy, so I'm hopeful that they'll keep growing. It could possibly be a plant disease like canker, which would require snipping away infected vines. I don't know, but I'm hoping for the best, If not, I have another pot of morning glories still growing inside to replace them if necessary. If you have advice about morning glories, please send it my way. Thanks for reading! 

Do you have a green thumb? Is there an Appalachian DIY project you think I should I try? I'd love to hear about it at mountainbloodwv@gmail.com or Facebook! If you try this out, I'd love to see your results, so feel free to share it on my page.