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Training vines for an arbor, pregola, or trellis |
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| Plans,
kits, and design ideas for popular garden structures |
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Training
vines for an arbor, pergola, or trellis:
An important aspect of growing climbing plants and
vines is understanding when and how to prune them.
Before you start pruning the vine on your
arbor, pergola or trellis,
it’s a good idea to decide on the goal for your
vine. For example if you want to produce a
high-quality wine grape you should prune it
differently than a climbing vine such as honeysuckle
(lonicera). I’m presently training a honeysuckle (lonicera)
on a trellis that runs along the side of my garden
shed and a wine grape on an arbor at the entrance
way to my herb garden.
I chose honeysuckle (lonicera),
because I wanted to improve the appearance of the
garden shed and the fragrance at dusk is heavenly. I
attached a one foot trellis along the length of my
garden shed roof and every year the vine grows a few
more feet along the trellis. Even though honeysuckle
is a vigorous and energetic climber since
established, I’ve been helping it along by weaving
stray tendrils in and out of the lattice and pruning
the pieces growing in the wrong direction. A few
tendrils have even strayed into the garden shed.
For the wine grape, I wanted to grow the vine along
the arbor and then start pruning for fruit growth.
Ideally for grapes you want to ensure the grapes are
in the full sun as much as possible. During the
summer I remove the leaves, which are covering or
shading the grapes. You want to make sure you don’t
remove too many leaves or there won’t be enough food
production to feed the grapes. It’s a balancing act,
but it’s a lot of fun experimenting.
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