We have a Honeysuckle vine at the back of the house that is a few years old, and the original plastic netting used to support it had started to degrade, presumably due to sun exposure. The original intent in planting the vine was to help cover a blank stucco wall, and we also harboured (perhaps idealistic) hopes that it would extend past the end of the wall to help hide the gas meter. Unfortunately, the vine has not grown quite as extensively as we need, but given vigilant aphid control, we still have hopes.
To that end, I wanted a fairly wide lattice that also extended up to the eaves. Of course, no one makes a lattice in the size we want, but hey - how hard can it be to bang together a wood lattice? It was actually outside my normal
woodworking season - I should have been outdoors weeding/planting/fertilizing/cleaning/pruning/mowing/etc., but what's a couple hours? Well, about 10, as it turned out. Of course, I couldn't make just a plain wooden grid, so I came up with a angled design that I figured looked interesting and should have been easy enough to build. The whole thing was made out of five cedar fence boards that I ripped into quarter-inch-thick pieces, and then held together with little brass screws. I made two identical halves and then flipped one over and screwed them together (although
achieving identicalness took some fairly major tweaking of my first "somewhat the same" attempt). I thought a rounded top would make it look a bit more finished, so that was added as a bit of an afterthought. I didn't bother putting any finish on the lattice since many commercial cedar lattices seem to be unfinished. I suppose I'll find out in a few years whether that was a wise decision or not. Update 2020: Still in fine shape, if a bit faded in color.
The end result is very light, but also a bit flimsy. However, mounted to the wall and staked in place, I think it should be plenty strong enough to hold up a vine (and a few thousand aphids).
| Material: | Cedar |
| Finish: | Unfinished |
| Size: | 48" x 108" x 1" |
| Time: | 10 hours |
| Done: | June 14, 2009 |
