Gardening Charlotte

Raspberry Cedar Arbor

Old gardening books recommend growing raspberries in home gardens because they are delicate to move and hard to keep fresh. I decided to grow them because I love the berries and have had some in my garden in the past. Not that I planted them, the ones I found were wild ones popping up in the middle of garden beds.

Helping the vines grow in a semi-orderly fashion has not been very – well, pretty. The recommendations are usually to build a flower bed with tall wires or to grow them along a wooden fence. Since I don’t like either, I decided to build a raspberry bed using cut down cedar branches.

I was inspired by my friend Tom’s garden. He has a very tall arbor made out of cedar boughs and a gate into his apiary I love walking through. As a gift last year, Tom surprised me with an air compressor, nail gun and a short lesson on how to use it, a must to easily shape the cedar branches.

And a pile of cut down cedar branches. Frankly the part that takes the most time is cutting and collecting the branches. For several weeks, my pile of cut down cedar branches looked like I was getting ready to start a huge bonfire in the middle of my driveway.

At first I trimmed some of the branches, then decided to wait until after I had them attached.

I started with the shortest sections to get the hang of using the nail gun without hitting a finger. The side sections were about three-feet long and relatively easy to shape.

For the back side of the raspberry bed I decided to curve the 10-foot section, easier said than done. After a few false starts, I found I could use the cedar branches themselves to help hold the curve I wanted.

Once the pieces were installed, I tied the corners together and my handyman, Robert, secured the back of the 10-foot fence piece with a short piece of rebar. It takes two sets of hands to hold a 10-foot fence in place.

Then the surprise. Robert suggested we should build an arbor over the berry bed, something I loved to have to shield the raspberry roots. Wrestling the cedar branches into the basic structure, we moved the compressor and nail gun to the garden to shape the arbor in place.

It took some gentle twisting and shaping but the over-arching arbor used up most of the remaining cedar branches. There is an opening at the arbor top to allow sun into the garden bed center.

Once the compressor was back in the garage, I added four raspberry plants, mulched them well and can’t wait for them to grow and cover the cedar fence.

Considering how much people around me don’t like and appreciate cedars, it’s nice to have something helpful and productive to do with the branches I cut off as I shape them.

I personally like cedars, especially covered in snow.

Charlotte Ekker Wiggins is a beekeeper, gardener and sometimes cook. Published by El Dorado Springs Sun once in print and online with author’s permission. Copyright 2017, all rights reserved. This column may not be reprinted, republished or otherwise distributed without author’s permission. Contact Charlotte at gardeningcharlotte at gmail dot com.