Can I Put a Trellis in Front of Chain Link Fence?

Considerations

• You can train both ornamental plants and garden crops onto a trellis. A wooden trellis will offer your plants additional protection against damage from wind and, when properly oriented, partial protection from the sun or greater exposure to sunlight. Wooden trellis panels afford you more privacy than chain link fencing, so you can quickly transform an outdoor area into a semi-secluded space.

Installation

• When installing a trellis in front of a chain link fence, you can use the existing fence posts to hold the trellis upright, or anchor it to the fence itself. Because you can access chain link from both sides and through the fence itself, you don’t need to drill holes or use screws or nails to mount the trellis panels. Instead, you can use plastic zip ties or twisted lengths of wire to hold the trellis to the chain-link. This also makes the panels easy to remove and repair.

Benefits

• You can use a trellis to hide your fence from sight, dressing up a section that has become rusty or damaged. The panels will also hide an unpleasant feature of a neighboring property from view. Adding a trellis will allow you to grow climbing vines and plants that require extra support and would otherwise overgrow the top of the fence, keeping the plants out of a neighbor's yard and providing you with a better view of the flowers and foliage.

Maintenance

• You may need to remove the panels occasionally to perform maintenance on your plants or the panels themselves. If you attach them simply with ties or wires, the panels will be easy to remove, allowing you to trim back or divide your plants or rework the soil beneath without damaging the panels. This also makes painting and repairs easier to perform, as you will not have to work around the fence to do the upkeep. With the trellis flush to the fence, you shouldn’t have a problem with weeds growing up behind the panels.