Unique bamboo trellis

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rexbanner

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So some friends and I built a hop garden the other day. I am opening a nano in six months and am interested in growing a lot of hops myself. My house is part of a Quaker village settled in the 1700s which is a historic landmark and hosts a crafts fair every year. My house is open for tours, so I decided to make a brewing garden in the back yard for some free PR for myself and my friend who has a small landscape architecture firm.

The design my friend made is called the hopsail, and features arms which can be raised and lowered by pulleys. This allows me to easily string up more lines if I want to, and harvest more easily.

The trellis is made from bamboo. For 25 bucks, you can buy a heatgun online, which will allow you to cure bamboo so it won't split/rot. It takes a little time but it's free material if you ask anyone who has some, it looks really nice, and it's strong, flexible, and light.

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Cool looking... nice job.

Thanks brudda

Very cool idea! That is an elegantly simple design. How well does the bamboo handle the load of the bines? Or the wind?

Appreciate it. Honestly I think it is a little bit overkill but it looks extremely cool in person, the pics don't give you the sense of scale and feng shui. And being able to lower the arms and attach new strings is great.

Will it last? I cannot say for certain since I just put it up, but I used bamboo for the hops I planted last year and it lasted the entire summer and winter. This spring, I replaced it because it was rotting. I didn't cure it, which is why. The thing is that the actual trellis creates very little drag; poles are thin, and bamboo is tapered to the top and flexible. The hop/string creates way more drag, but it is relatively light and has zero leverage. If you think about it, trees create way more drag than a hop trellis and rarely fall over, but a strong enough storm will knock most things down.
 
That looks really cool, I've got access to some bamboo and going to try and grow hops this year using a bamboo trellis
 
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