Home-made Indoor Pallet Wood Trellis Planter Part 2 - The Trellis

Trellis is something that we always seem to need a lot of in our garden and it is often expensive and sometimes not very well made. 

When our first lot fell apart we found quite a handy alternative in the faux astragals in the double-glazed units we salvaged from a joiners. This however, has now finally rotted and I thought it would be a good idea to make our own from our plentiful supply of pallet wood. Having made this for the planter, I will now go on to make some more for the garden including an arbour in which we can eat, without the risk of marauding chicks.

The trellis back to the planter was so as to provide a structure up which climbing plants could grow and provide us with more space for growing food indoors. Furthermore, it gave the planter a more 'furniture'-like appearance. We were just in time in getting the plants in from the greenhouse, the aubergines were already touched by the first frosts.

Once again, I used pallet wood planks, Unlike with the planter  I did not plane the faces of the wood. Instead I used a circular saw to cut the wood into  21mm-22mm wide strips. I selected the width so as to obtain the maximum number of strips with little or no waste. I usually obtained four strips per plank.

These strips were secured to an outside frame which provided stiffness to the trellis and provided a means of attaching the trellis to the rear face of the planter. The frame uprights and bottom were cut to about 36mm-37mm (1.5") width and the top portion was cut to 50mm (2").

I decided the bottom of the trellis (the 36mm piece) would rest on the top edge of the planter so that this piece would support the weight of it and any vegetation. The screws used to attach the trellis would not, therefore have any excessive shearing stress placed upon them.

Constructing the trellis.

The uprights of the trellis were to extend to the floor. The uprights were placed onto the workbench, the overall width was the planter rear wall width. The lower trellis edge was laid onto the uprights at a distance of the planter height from the bottom end of the uprights. The wider top trellis strip was laid at the top end of the uprights and the whole arrangement was checked for squareness. These frame pieces were then joined together with two staples at each corner. I found that the staples were not sufficient to hold the structure rigidly enough, but were adequate for a temporary 'tacking'. The corners were then also nailed, the staples prevented the frame pieces from jumping around during nailing. Once these four framing pieces were joined together, the intermediate trellis laths were laid onto the uprights, I used a short piece of wood to set the distance between each lath. The trellis was assembled using an electric stapler (two staples per joint).
 

The laths were then trimmed flush with the uprights.

Without turning the trellis over, the vertical laths were laid into position and stapled to the laths below (two staples per joint). The surplus was then trimmed off.

The lower edge of the trellis was placed onto the top edge of the planter and clearance holes for the screws were drilled through the uprights where they touched the upper and lower outside rails of the base.

I attached the trellis once the planter was in the house.



Now if you'd like to, sit back and watch the film:

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All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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