"Give me an arbour, give me the trellis’d grape," poet Walt Whitman once wrote.

We heartily agree. The humble trellis and its cousins (the obelisk, the pergola, the arbour, the ol’ bean pole) have enjoyed supporting roles in the garden for millenniums. And they’re big multi-taskers. As well offering a structure upon which plants can climb, spread and drape themselves, they provide privacy, dappled shade on a scorching day, a way to mark off different areas of the yard and esthetic possibilities.

"They’re definitely a big part of the deck, the look and feel of the garden," says Rob Sproule of Edmonton’s Salisbury Greenhouses and Landscaping. "And they create a lot of the architecture in the garden itself."

They also run the gamut from dead simple to highly elaborate and from inexpensive to pricey.

The lattice news

Wooden lattice is an affordable, popular trellis material that’s getting a makeover in 2010. Tim Chichak of Greenland Garden Centre in Edmonton says the new trend is toward a horizontal configuration, rather than a traditional checkerboard pattern on the diagonal or up and down.

"It’s ... basically a horizontal look going straight across. It’s much more modern, very clean and refined," Chichak says, noting that vines and other climbing plants aren’t necessarily part of this new trellis scenario.

"But make sure to put it in perspective," he cautions. "If you have a traditional house, you’re going to use a traditional lattice. If you have an English garden style, modern lattice will seem out of place."

New takes on screens

Edmonton-based designer Slav Grygierowski of Urbane Landscapes (urbanelandscapes.com) says he’s starting to see a much wider range of materials used in garden screening.

"Glass in a frame, for example," he says. "It could be frosted, it could be coloured; it could also be artistic glass, stained or patterned. I’ve seen mirrors used as well — placed properly, they make a garden look bigger.”

Another new theme for screening and plant support is fencing made of willow, Chichak says. "It rolls out and it’s made of little pieces of willow bound by wire, six feet high and eight to 10 feet long. Stick this between two pieces of wood and you end up with a very full screen. You can’t see much through it, and it’s a very natural look."

Free-standing bamboo screens are another option this year, says Sproule. "They’re basically good-sized pieces of bamboo lashed together with string. You could stand them up against the back of a container, or put a number of containers in front and have them grow all the way up."

As for obelisks and other structural pieces that can be placed in containers or at ground level to mark the corner of the vegetable plot, there’s a wider array of styles and sizes each year, says Chichak. "Think fan trellises, think rectangles with half circles on top, sometimes in decorative glass."

While they’re not an off-the-shelf item, consider using fabrics as screening in the garden — a sturdy type of material hung with dowels, for example.

"With any traditional frame you can hang fabrics in between," Chichak says. "Imagine sewing a curtain-like fabric you can open and close like drapes. Or that roll up. Or that even tie back, like canvas on a tent."

The sky’s the limit when it comes to ideas for novel garden structures, Chichak and Grygierowski say.

"Go to the Internet," Chichak advises. "One picture says a thousand words."

"It’s basically your imagination," says Grygierowski.

"You could use a screen that’s Japanese, like a shoji; it could be bamboo or have elements of bamboo. A portion of the screen could be wooden lattice; there could be a place in the middle for a mirror or a vase."

Plants that screen

Don’t forget that plants themselves make great screening material. Along with climbing vines, grasses are "absolutely considered architectural plants," says Sproule. "Another would be cordyline. They tend to have clean lines, very defined angles. Their appeal is in their symmetry and their shape."

Hedges have long been used as screens and demarcations in the yard. "They’re common in classical gardens, but when used in a contemporary situation, it’s more the idea of blocks of hedge instead of a row," Grygierowski advises.

For a fresh, informal approach, Chichak suggests doing a barberry hedge.

Trellis trivia

- The word trellis comes from the Latin trilicius, meaning three threads, describing a woven fabric.

- Some of the oldest illustrations of trellises are in the garden frescoes of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The Romans used trellis work to demarcate areas of the garden and to support plants.

- After the decline of the Roman Empire, trellis work next appeared in illustrations of medieval castle gardens, where it was used to create seclusion as well as climbing structures for plants.

- Trellises were later used in the gardens of the Renaissance and in the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century.

Source: Landscape and Garden Product Directory