Click on the picture to get a better look. This is a rough scale drawing of my backyard showing existing structures and plants. I'm trying to fit a grapevine or two into the landscape. Please leave a comment if you have an idea for me.
Option 1:
There's only one place to do a straight 20' run that gets sun. It would cut my lawn in half and I'd want the wire low - 2' off the ground or 3' at the most since it would block the view of the woods from my screened porch if it were taller. It wouldn't interfere with walkways and would provide a demarcation for the bee balm that I wanted to plant against the porch anyway.
Option 2:
Another option is to make the trellis in the shape of an L with 10' arms. I could do this one at the 4'-5' height but I'm afraid it would shade out a rectangle of ground that I thought I might want to use for a second raised bed to do flowers or more veggies. Could I incorporate the trellis into the raised bed and just have the trellis running along the east and north sides of the bed?? The west side wouldn't get enough sun because of the shade from the woods. Maybe the vine wouldn't shade the bed too badly?
Option 3:
A third option is to grow it up one of the two trees that define an entryway into the woods (leading to the fort!) I could mount a support spanning the two trees and train the vines up and across, making a kind of overhead door frame to go into the woods.
I'm running out of full sun locations since the porch shades a big chunk in the morning (the bee balm location) and then the woods shade some in the afternoon too. I think I could fit one or two raised beds along the treeline between the hive and the entrance to the fort. :) It goes back to the fact that I don't want to block the view from the porch into the woods since that's so, so pretty. Maybe I wouldn't do a raised bed in that location and just do mounded ground with flowers so they wouldn't interrupt the view so much. Hmmm.
Hi Caroline! That deck looks pretty sunny, is it? Can you build a trellis over the deck, attaching it to the house? Plant your grapes on the end next to the bee balm, and aggressively tie them in? Or plant along the long side of the deck, on either side of the stairs and run them up the supports? It may be a bigger project than you're looking for? Or it might become a bird roost over the grill. Or are these vines too aggressive? Some pruning would keep them in check and off of the house, and give you better, bigger fruit? Kate
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