thinned trees for garden trellises

hey all

hardware stores want 8 bucks for a tomato cage these days. eff that and eff inflation and eff huge corporations, am i right?!

we have a woodlot that needs to be thinned (and lots of broken trees from the hurricane in september) and i was hoping to make free posts to do handmade a-frame or florida weave trellises. i see these all over pinterest but nobody ever says what species of tree they're using.

we have all types of spruce, red maple, birch.. they don't have to be perfectly rot resistant. i'm not going to mill anything, i just wanna thin some baby trees out and re-use them even if they only last a year or two in the ground. i also read about charring the ground-end of the wood to make it last longer?

has anybody done this?  any help deeply appreciated!

Hey vv, I do a lot of pruning and thinning throughout the year, and I use a lot of sticks for plant support. Smaller sticks, maybe 1" diameter and anywhere from 1-3' long, I use frequently to mark locations of new plantings or to provide support for single plants like peppers and tomatoes. I push or hammer them into the ground, so the submerged part tends to rot within a year. Longer sticks get a couple years of use, just getting shorter each season :)

For sturdy support, and less rot, I like to use three sticks to make a tripod using a bit of rope. Look up how to tie a "tripod lashing;" I learned this back in Boy Scouts, it's a really cool trick. I've made little 2' ones with twine that lasted a couple years, but I also have a big 6' one I made from dead cedar trunks and a thick rope. That one is probably 4 years old now.

The tripods are fun, but I find I need something with more horizontal support for climbing plants. I clicked your post to see if anyone had better ideas!

I think Mulberry and Crepe Myrtles are the ones I cut back the most. On my site, they provide some of the longest, straightest, smoothest limbs without too much branching. If the stick is sturdy, and thick enough to handle being pressed/hammered into the ground a bit, I use it!

vv anderson wrote:we have a woodlot that needs to be thinned (and lots of broken trees from the hurricane in september) and i was hoping to make free posts to do handmade a-frame or florida weave trellises. i see these all over pinterest but nobody ever says what species of tree they're using.

we have all types of spruce, red maple, birch.. they don't have to be perfectly rot resistant. i'm not going to mill anything, i just wanna thin some baby trees out and re-use them even if they only last a year or two in the ground.

Hi vv anderson. You've cracked the code! Your woodlot should provide everything you need.

I do this extensively, building tripods/multipods for pole beans, indeterminate tomatoes, and viny climbers like squash and snap peas. Spruce will last a season at most. Hardwoods can last many seasons (that would be your maple and birch). Willow is good too, though it's pretty soft so it doesn't last long.

I am lucky to have tons of saskatoon/serviceberry growing wild in my bush -- it's amazing for these purposes, growing fairly straight and flexible-strong. (Though I'm unluckily to be gardening in a giant sandpit into which compost disappears overnight. You have to be damned stubborn to get results around here).  And of course saskatoon is sustainable -- when you chop off the stalks the root survives and kicks out a new crop in short order.

I'm in a dry climate so I can cut fresh stalks and push them into the ground and they will dry out on their own (bark on, except I don't know if that applies to birch, it's so sweet that decomposers might break it down unless the bark was scored). In a wetter climate I would dry the hardwood stalks first, bark on, for longevity.

My preferred harvesting tool is the singularly un-macho levered pruning lopper. You can scratch down a bit and cut the stalk low enough that it won't be a tripping nuisance later. Bigger stuff meets with a battery sawzall with a garbage blade that I don't mind dipping into the sand. Crude but effective.

Hope this helps.

Howdy,

All the above...

I also look for good branch forks, y sections etc, easy support pole, like a crutch.  I also still find old growth sections of logged cedar that I split down to sizes I need, make tomato cages, pea/bean vine  supports, etc.

I have "stacks" of "garden art project" wood...

randal cranor wrote:I also look for good branch forks, y sections etc, easy support pole, like a crutch.  

Yes! Me too. When I'm trimming off the unusable top and side branches, any good "Y" is carefully preserved. They are so helpful later.

I find hazels coppice really well and can be cut for garden supports, small fencing jobs etc

We have wild cherries that pop up everywhere. If they're not too much in the way, I let them grow a couple of years and then cut them down for trellises and poles. I have a willow that I coppice that gives me nice thin flexible sticks. Those two last a really long time. Other weedy trees I thin out only last one or two seasons. Evergreens seen to get especially brittle.

Also artichoke and sunflower stems are useful for about a year. I cut them down in the fall, strip off the leaves, and if I remember to store them somewhere dry over the winter, they are good for small trellises. They are rougher than the trees and peas can grab onto them more easily.

Yes, I use them for our garden and just started last year. We live right in a forest and there are definitely an excess of trees. Here are a couple of pictures. I also use them for helping the tomatoes stay up.  I posted a couple of pictures here:

https://permies.com/t/217415/site-messy-fun