Solid Strand Wire - Another Versatile Gardening Material

In another entry, I extolled the use of thin insulated wires as a tool for gardening. Well, what about thick ones? Sure enough, they do have their place. But by a "thick wire", I refer only to the solid strand type of wire and not the stranded one. A stranded wire does not take shape when you bend it.

You can buy them or reuse discarded ones. A meter of gauge 14 would cost around Php15 per meter. Here's a length I managed to salvage at the height of typhoon Milenyo. Some wires at the neighborhood were inadvertently cut when they were hit by swaying branches of big trees. The phone company came and decided to just discard these old wires.


A thick wire has all the advantages that thin wire offers except that:

1. It is not easily cut. You need to use a pair of pliers with a heavy duty cutting tool that can cut through metal wire and the rubber/plastic insulation.
   
   
2. It is not easily shaped or formed with fingers. You need a pair of pliers to form and tighten it.
   
   

An added advantage though is that since it's thicker, it's much more rigid and durable. It can be used to comprise the main members or frames of vine support structures.