Gardening: Creating a Giant Basket and Trellis on an $8 Budget

After creating several dead hedges, I decided that I wanted a moon gate made from wisteria.

I staked out a rough circle with small branches and started weaving with thicker vines.

I fairly quickly realized that I didn't have enough support to keep the circle upright without weaving an incredibly thick wreath.

While not fun, the project was doable!

However, my mom offered to let me use an old trampoline to do the moon gate, so the plan changed!

I decided to make a giant garden basket with a teepee trellis made from Bradford Pear trunks that my son and I had cut.

Although the goal was to use items around the house, I decided to spend $8 on stakes from Dollar General.

I wish I had gone with 12 to get a more even weave, but the 8 worked well.

The weaving doesn't go all the way around each pole. I used two or three poles at a time and wrapped the wisteria around the stakes in a figure 8 pattern.

My original thought was to have a planter in the center and fill the basket with flowers.

However, a windstorm showed me the planter wouldn't be stable, and the depth of the basket would hide most of the fancy legs.

I trimmed the side branches off the Bradfords and used physics and vines to hold them upright.

Over the next few days, I filled the basket with mulch and grass clippings, which helped hold in the legs firmly.

These will have beans in them this summer!

Now I'm designing the entire space for herbs and flowers that will go in the next few weeks.