The garden plant stakes that was made was fairly easy to assemble and didn't require much materials. All what was needed was: three pieces of bamboo sticks, a short metal wire and some twine.
Since I had several Rangoon Creepers that were getting vigorous, I applied the simple technique to make my own garden plant stakes on these Rangoon Creepers. When I bought the Rangoon Creeper vines, they were around 1.5 feet high. I had intended to sell these vines. But because of the rainy season, they've become robust and have grown over 2 feet high. Rather than risk them sprawling their branches on the ground, I assembled the support plant garden stakes.
How to Assemble Cheap Plant Support Stakes
Materials
- Bamboo sticks: 30" long, 1/2" thick - 3 pcs.
- Metal wire: 17" long, gauge #18
- Machete
- Pliers with wire cutting tool
- Pruning shear or screwdriver or any small tool with a wedge
Easy to Make Bamboo Support Stakes for Garden Plants
Procedure
- Using a machete, split bamboo sticks with 1/2" thickness as shown below. Split the bamboo crossing the rounded edge. I use a small dumbbell plate so the bamboo doesn't dig on the ground. You need 3 sticks for this purpose.
- Choose the thinner end of the bamboo stick as the top end. For the top end of the bamboo stick, use the machete to split the top of the stick. Make the split perpendicular to the previous lengthwise cut as shown below.
This means split the bamboo along the bamboo's rounded edge. The cut should only be around 1 inch deep into the bamboo. This top end of the bamboo stick will hold the circular metal wire.
- Choose the thicker end of the bamboo stick as the bottom end. The bottom end needs to be thicker and heavier so it is more stable.
For the bottom end of the bamboo stick, use the machete to shave off some of the bamboo to taper it. By tapering it, the bottom end will be easier to push down into the soil.
- Here's roughly how the bottom end would look like when tapered. It doesn't have to be pointed, just tapered enough so it could slide down the soil.
- With a pair of pliers, bend and form the 17-inch long metal wire into a circular shape. With both ends overlapping each other by 2 inches, wind the ends into each other. Here's how the finished wire circle looks like.
- Here's the detail of how both metal wire ends wound into each other.
- Take one of the bamboo sticks and pry open the the slit in the top end with the wedge of a pruning shear (or screwdriver).
While keeping it open, slide in the circular wire as shown below. Press the wire into the slit tightly so the bamboo slit grips the wire.
- Do the same thing for the other 2 bamboo sticks with all 3 sticks roughly equidistant from each other.
- Take the whole bamboo and wire assembly to the garden plant pot. Push down the bamboo sticks into the soil, keeping the bottom ends equidistant to each other.
Push the sticks so they reach the bottom of the pot.
- Press down on the tops of the 3 bamboo sticks so they are level. Optionally, you can use tie wires to secure the top ends of the bamboo sticks with the circular wire.
Of course, you could do away with the top slits and the circular wire and just tie the top ends of the 3 bamboo sticks like a tripod. The circular wire, however, creates more room for the garden plant or vine to grow.
These support stakes will work on the interim while the vine is young. For a bigger vine in a bigger pot, you may want to work on a nice and sturdy bamboo trellis in a container.
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