A Touch of the Grape

A couple of years ago I planted two grapevines next to the fence in my side yard. This summer they are trying to take over my neighbors azaleas and crepe myrtle tree on the other side of the fence so I decided it was time to give them an arbor to climb on. After an exhaustive search online and at local home improvement stores I found what I wanted and The Music Man graciously agreed to build it for my birthday.

Here's what we came up with:

Because the vines are about ten feet apart I wanted something about eight feet wide. There weren't any premade ones that wide that were in our budget so we got two premade cedar trellises and an eight by ten cedar board, which cost almost as much as one trellis.

Here are the raw materials for the arbor.

 The Music Man morphed into Mr. Carpenter for the day. We dragged all the power tools out of the garage and got to work. The first part of the plan called for ripping the board into five strips to use for connecting the two trellises together and adding stability.

It all came from Lowe's in Homewood, Alabama.

I liked the name of the trellis model and got a birthday special on them.

More power tools came out of the garage, including two drills and a screwdriver, which didn't make it past the first screw. He measured and drilled and put the screws in, first on one side then the other. 

One side finished.

 When all the strips were finally in place, he added some eyebolts and strung wire across the top so the grapevines have something to wrap their cute little tendrils around. We moved it to the side yard, dug out the uphill side because our yard slopes. I say we, actually Mr. Carpenter did all the digging. He pounded some fence stakes to brace the legs on the inside of the trellises and used deck screws to attach them to the trellis. 

I put the dirt back in the holes and we were done. Not counting the trip to Lowe's and another to Home Depot, it took us about three hours from ripping the boards to putting the dirt back in the holes.

Here are the unruly grapevines:

Here they are after the trellis was installed: I still have to do some pruning but it's definitely an improvement!

Good night little trellis.

Once the vines cover it, I plan on putting a chair under it and sipping a mojito or two in the afternoons. If the vines ever grow grapes I might just stay out there all day.