No nail vine eyes and other creeping crawlers

robynsnest

I have a delimema that needs fixing. On three sides of my front lawn i have a low (3 feet) rough concrete wall which is capped. Actually very atractive and is as old as the house (50-60 years). There is a small formal rose garden along the drive but that's it. I am more of a country cottage look and right now i need to add depth and background for other plantings. I have planted 3 different clematis alpina as they are low growing and i love their rambling style. My problem is i don't know what to use as a trellis. I planted and said to myself that it would come to me on what to do. I found at the garden center these no nail wire eyes. Supposed to work on concrete and brick. It is an apoxy putty to glue the eyes to the wall, wait 8 hours before attaching wire and tada....instant trellis!! Not!!!!!!!!!! They all pulled off as i was tightening the wire. Tried again and scrubbed the cement with a wire brush first....same thing. Does any one have any ideas on how i can get these alpinas to start scrambling over my wall?? I don't really want to stick a wooden trellis in the ground and this will take away from the weathered grey of the wall. I just wish these little suckers had suckers...it would make it so much easier.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I would love to tackle this job this weekend.

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou

Robyn

BlackBird · Rowan Tree Joined: 25 Jan 2007 Posts: 147

You could try attaching chicken wire to your low wall. It will be virtually invisable from a distance once you get some good leafing on your clematis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_wire

Attach it with a few well placed cable clips.

robynsnest · Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 5:25 am Post subject:

Chicken wire is a good adea as it woul be close to the same color as the wall but how would i attach the cable clips to the wall? I don't really don't want to do any drilling to it and what is a cable clip? Confused

robynsnest · Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 5:28 am Post subject:

Oh! I just looked at what a cable clip is. I have some but i don't think you can nail those into the cement. Anyother ideas Question

GPI · Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 11:50 am Post subject:

The small nails in cable clips can be removed and replaced with the small steel nail variety to allow tacking to the wall.

robynsnest · Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:21 pm Post subject:

Hi every one who answered my call of help. I went to my local DIY store today and they told me to use masonary nails. I thought you could only drill concrete. They worked great and i strung up my lines. Hopefully my clematis alpina will be happy now!

Quincy · Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:59 am Post subject:

Have you tried fishing line instead of string or chicken wire? I have a relatively heavy "fishing line" bought in lidl and I use it for supporting climbers. Its about 0.5mm thick. From 10 ft away, you cant see it.
I also use wire clips. Catching the nail with a pliers and removing the plastic bit, the little masonry nail is small but strong. I dont use the plastic bit.

Quincy

robynsnest · Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 3:58 pm Post subject:

I used the masonary nails last night and it worked just fine, i like the idea of the fishing line. Have used it for other reasons inside the house, it is great for hanging pictures if you have a picture rail, that way you can move your pictues around without ever putting a nail in the wall and it doesn't show up against the walls.