There is a must-read article in the May issue of Garden Design Magazine for anyone interested in successfully growing edibles: Up in the Air: Arbors, Trellises and the Edible Garden. The story, which features TerraTrellis, explores how trellises, arbors and garden tuteurs are essential in creating beautiful, plentiful edible gardens - especially those with sprawling, twining or climbing plants that do well going vertical.
Writer Bill Marken proposes many interesting thoughts, like how an artful trellis "offers an interesting visual anchor; a month or so later it is completely transformed by the plant and then later by the harvest."
Here are some of Bill's other creative ideas:
On the garden tuteur: "A pair on either side of a path can create an entryway to a kitchen garden; a single tuteur can add height and drama to the center of a mixed flower border"
On the garden arbor: "A crop-draped arbor makes the perfect portal leading into a vegetable patch or, when set into the garden's interior, a visual landmark or shaded opportunity to ponder the tasks at hand."
On the garden trellis: "Choose a trellis that's sturdy enough to support the plant and its bounty and big enough that you'll see portions of it at the end of the season, when the plant has fully matured."
The article also lists many mouth-watering edibles that integrate well with trellises: Armenian cucumber, Scarlet Runner Bean, Pole Beans, Peas, Tomatoes, Summer Squash, Gourds, Chinese yard-long beans, melons, smaller pumpkins, Hyacinth Bean, Malabar spinach.
Bill writes that our TerraTrellises "create order and drama" in a veggie gardens. Landscape architect Jennifer Bartley of American Potager in Granville, Ohio says "Vertical structures turn a vegetable garden into a magical place....a special destination where you want to be. " Yes, Jennifer, we couldn't agree more!
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