I saw an a-frame trellis in a friend’s garden and it inspired me to build one of these.  I picked up materials at our local Habitat for Humanity Re-Store for $3.30 and built it in about one hour.  If you are handier than I am or have the appropriate tools at the ready all at once, you can probably whip one out quicker than that.  I purchased wooden trim that they had available, so it doesn’t all match, but the important part is that they were all nearly the same width, about 2 – 2 1/2″ and they were all real wood.  In lieu of a hinge, I used nylon webbing that my resourceful husband saved from a backpack that needed to be thrown away.

A-frame garden trellis

I started out by cutting all the pieces with a hand saw. For my trellis, I needed four vertical pieces of the same length, in this case 40″.  I needed six horizontal pieces of the same length, about 32″, if I remember correctly.  I assembled each side of the trellis individually.  For the first side, I laid two of the vertical pieces parallel to each other and then placed the three horizontals at equal distances apart, about 12″ in this case, and perpendicular to the verticals, with the ends of the horizontals flush with the edge of the verticals.  I nailed the end of each of the horizontals into the vertical piece.  This will give you a frame, with two edge pieces and three horizontal pieces.  Repeat exactly with the second side and remaining pieces.  To attach the webbing “hinge”, lay the each of the trellis frames with the outside face of the frame laying on your work surface and the tops of the frames about two inches apart, parallel to each other.  Take a 4″ piece of nylon webbing and hammer it into each of the vertical pieces, near the top of the vertical piece to create a hinge and then repeat on the other side.  Take your trellis and stand it up.  It should look like an a-frame and you are done!  I should have taken step-by-step photos, but it really is such an easy process and believe me, if I can build it, you can, too.

Side view of a-frame trellis