Modern Grid Trellis

Backyard space with a trellis and garden bed.

Last updated August 21, 2024

By: Liz Morrow

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Liz Morrow is a DIY evangelist passionate about spreading the good news about the power of DIY to transform your space. You can find her at @liz.morrow on instagram, and online at lizmorrowstudios.com.

A Note From The Home Depot

Bringing your garden to the next level doesn’t need to mean doing a total makeover. Liz Morrow shows The Home Depot how she upgraded her backyard garden by assembling a modern grid trellis!

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DIY Modern Grid Trellis
What You'll Need
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4

DIY Modern Grid Trellis

Summer has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest and I’m chomping at the bit to get my summer projects underway with the help of The Home Depot. Before I can start my first summer project, I’ve got to unearth our yard from the 9 months of winter slumber so I grabbed some new Harvest Select Soil, Vigoro Mulch , Miracle Grow All-Purpose Plant Food, EZ Seed Patch and Repair Grass Seed, and Vigoro Weed Control
so I can get our yard freshened up and feeling good.

Woman pouring soil over an in-progress garden.

No matter how well I did putting our garden to bed for the winter, it always needs a bit of TLC at the beginning of summer. We needed some new mulch in my front garden and I love how Vigoro Black Wood Mulch
contrasts the natural wood chips of my garden path. Among the list of overgrown things needing taming, our lawn is certainly high on that list, and my 40 volt Ryobi Lawn Mower made quick work of that task.

A woman cutting the grass with a Ryobi lawn mower, with a dog in the back.

A dog watching a woman pour mulch onto the ground.

While building our patio last year, we damaged a few spots of the lawn in this area, so I made sure to fill in those spots with new grass seed using this EZ Seed Patch and Repair . With things feeling cleaned up and ready for summer, it’s time for the first summer project of the year!

Over the past three years, I’ve slowly built and added on to our garden, and now that the essential layout and garden beds are done, I’m moving on to fleshing it out with elements that help define the space and give it a cozier feel. When we bought this house, it really just felt like the house was dropped onto a totally empty lot with no landscaping to speak of, so adding in things that help the house feel integrated with the land and neighborhood has been part of our long-term exterior goals.

I’ve spent a couple years building raised beds for our vegetable/pollinator garden, but last year when I built the patio and pergola area in the back of our house, I realized that you could see all the way to that area from the front, so I wanted to create a little more privacy, with something for climbing plants to vine on. While I was walking the aisles of Home Depot, I saw a garden bed trellis made with Wild Hog fence panels and I knew that would be the perfect solution, since we already had garden beds right where I wanted trellis to go.

I built the pergola last year using LINX brackets and Wild Hog fence panels, so I was familiar with and loved those products already, so using them to create this trellis situation seemed like the perfect fit.

What You'll Need

Materials (per 3.5 x 6.5 ft trellis):

Tools:

Medium stain columns of wood laid on grass in a rectangle with black square wire in the middle.

Woman assembling medium stain wood columns into black corner bracket.

Woman measuring and marking medium stain wood columns while dog sniffs speed square.

Step 1

Start by inserting the first 10ft treated 4x4 into the first LINX L-Fit brackets. The 10ft 4x4s will be the vertical posts for the trellis. Make sure this 4x4 goes all the way into the bracket, so that when you look inside from the other side, you see it fully inserted. Then slide in the 8ft 4x4, so that it’s inserted fully and touches the 10ft 4x4 you’ve already inserted.

Step 2

Lay your Wild Hog panel in the middle where it will eventually get installed, with about a 1/4 - 1/2 in gap on all sides (so that when you attach the tracks, the panel will still have room to slide in). Mark the width of that top 4x4 using your speed square (this piece should be about 36 ½- 36 ¾ inches long), remove from the bracket, and cut on your mark.

Woman cutting medium stain wood column with Ryobi circle drill.

Woman fitting medium stain wood columns into black corner bracket.

Woman drilling medium stain wood columns into black corner bracket while short dog watches.

Step 3

Insert the other 10ft 4x4 into the second LINX bracket, insert the top 4x4 you just cut into both brackets, then secure the 4x4’s to the brackets using the screws provided with the LINX brackets.

Woman drilling medium stain wood columns into black corner bracket.

Hog Track Kit layed on top of assembled trellis.

Woman marking black 3ft tracks for cutting.

Woman marking black 6ft tracks for cutting.

Step 4

Open your Hog Track kit– you’ll have two 3ft tracks and two 6ft tracks. You’ll need to cut the 3ft tracks to fit between the LINX Brackets, one at 22 ¾ in. and the other at 34 ¼in. You’ll also need to cut the excess off the bottom of the 6ft tracks to fit between the bottom of the LINX bracket and the bottom of the panel, to 65 ½ in.

Step 5

Cut the tracks using your angle grinder, then spray the cut end with black spray paint.

Women’s outstreched hand holding Rust-Oleum black spray paint can.

Women’s outstretched hand spray painting black tracks.

Step 6

Mark a line down the center of all of your 4x4s at 1 ¾ in., this is where you’ll install the hog tracks. I used my speed square, holding my pencil at 1 3/4in. and sliding the base of the square along the edge of the 4x4.

Step 7

Using the screws provided in the Hog Tracks kit, attach the tracks along this line. Repeat this process for all three sides.

Woman marking medium stain wood columns attached to black tracks.

Woman drilling medium stain wood columns to black tracks.

Step 8

With the tracks on all three sides installed, slide your Wild Hog panel in all the way so it’s snug to the top. Once the panel is in, you can build and install the bottom piece.

Women sliding trellis pannel into place inside medium stain columns and black tracks.

Woman drilling black tracks to medium stain wood columns.

Step 9

For the bottom piece, measure the inner width between the upright 4x4s and cut your final section of 4x4 to fit, this should be about 36 ½ in. Again, mark the center of this 4x4 at 1 ¾ in, and install that final Hog Track. You can then slide this piece up into place so the panel slips inside that bottom track.

Step 10

Secure this bottom piece by toenailing in using 3 in. exterior screws on both sides. I used two screws per side.

Woman drilling two pieces of trellis together at corners.

Close up of woman drilling two pieces of trellis together at corners with Ryobi drill.

Step 11

At the location where you’re going to install your trellis, measure and mark where the posts will go. They should be about 41 inches on center. Using a post hole digger, dig the holes about 38-42in deep.

Step 12

Place about an inch of gravel in the base of each hole, then (with a friend— these trellises are heavy!) slide the trellis posts into the holes.

Woman digging hole for wooden trellis columns.

Woman and man lifting trellis into holes in mulched ground.

Woman and man fitting and sliding trellis into holes in mulched ground.

Step 13

You can secure this trellis either using quick-setting concrete, or I chose to fill in around the posts using gravel. Since my garden plan is constantly in flux, I wanted to make sure I had the option to move these in the future if my plans change, and gravel keeps them secure without making them 100% permanent.

Woman filling holes in mulched ground to cover assembled trellis.

A rasied garden bed with plants, a trellis, and mulched ground.

I grabbed some Jasmine and Honeysuckle to climb up these new trellises, and not only with they provide privacy once they fill in the trellis, they also have lovely scents and are pollinator friendly. My White Vinyl PVC Windsor Arbor in this spot is also a Home Depot find from last summer, but now I’m thinking I need to move it to a new spot and make a matching arbor to go with my trellises!

This post was created in partnership with The Home Depot. The author may have received compensation for this article and associated images or video, potentially in the form of products and/or services. All expressed opinions and experiences are the author’s own words.