DIY Indoor Plant Trellis: Houseplant Trellis Ideas - Inspiration and How to Make Them

One easy way to transform the look of your vining plants is to give them an indoor DIY trellis. Trellising your houseplants will not only help mature leaves but is also a great opportunity to style your houseplants and turn them into a statement piece. Let’s discuss all the ways you can create your own DIY plant trellis for pots.

1. DIY moss pole

   A moss pole is a pole that's coated with moss and helps encourage houseplants to grow bigger, mature leaves. Moss poles are the most popular method in the plant support category. For this you'll need; spaghnum moss, PVC pipe or a bamboo stick, zip ties and wire mesh.
   
   

   First, make sure to lay down a tarp or planting mat to help with the mess. Moss has a tendency to shed everywhere and a tarp will make cleaning a lot easier. Now, you'll need to soak the moss in water. Once it's fully saturated, give it a good squeeze and wring out the excess water. It's never good to use moss that's dripping wet.

   

   DIY moss pole

   
   Next, cut the wire mesh about 1-2 ft taller than the plant. For width, make sure to not make it wider than the pot you're using. You may need to take some measurements.
   
   Now lay the wire mesh down on your planting tarp and cover it entirely in moss and lay the PVC pipe or bamboo stick in the middle--this will act as the plant support structure. This support structure is especially important for those larger moss poles.
   
   Lastly, close the moss pole by overlapping the two ends of the wire mess and securing it with zip-ties. You can use scissor or wire cutters to cut off any excess parts from the zip ties or wire mesh and you can also trim any spaghnum moss that is sticking out.
   
   Place the moss pole in your planter and attach the houseplant. The moss pole will train plants to grow upright and help produce bigger and mature leaves.

2. DIY coco coir pole

   For a DIY coco coir pole, you'll need; coco coir liner, fishing line or twine, and a PVC pipe or bamboo stick (like with the spaghnum moss pole, this will act like the plant support structure).

   Wrap the PVC pipe in the coco liner and secure with twine. Now you can install the coco coir and begin to wrap your plant around it.

3. DIY bend metal trellis

   The bend metal trellis is a lot easier than it may sound. All you'll need is a needle nose plier and some wire (something like an old wire hanger).

   A good rule to follow, specifically for a DIY round trellis, would be to double the diameter of your pot. So for a 5 in pot, aim for a trellis that's 10in in diameter. And when it comes to shaping the wire, find something circular you can use to use to slowly mold the wire. If the wire has a lot of kinks in it, it may be more difficult to mold but it should be fairly easy to bend and make into a circular shape.

   Now once you have a nice, circular shape you like, bend the excess wire into the stand part of your trellis. You can use the needle nose plier to bend them into two L-shapes and now you can place the trellis in your pot and attach your vining plant around.

4. Ladder as a trellis

   The Ladder trellis design is the most common bamboo trellis design type  you may see in local plant stores. Lots of outdoor gardeners use this type of trellis, as well. To make a diy bamboo cane trellis, you can use any type of wood; popsicle sticks, bamboo sticks or plywood. Now, arrange the wood in that classic ladder shape and secure with twine.

   Place your trellis ladder in your planter box and secure the vines up the ladder. Attach any new growth on the trellis as the plant grows.

5. Plank from the hardware store

   Growing plants on planks is our favorite method and the easiest of any DIY method. Just head to your local hardware store and check out their wood area. The ideal wood would be untreated cedar or pine. You may find the planks in large sizes like 6ft+. But you can ask an associate to cut the wood to the size you need. I like to get 8ft cedar planks and have it cut in half. A 4ft plank gives your plant enough space to grow and mature without the plank being too top heavy in a planter. You can read our blog here to learn more about the benefits of growing houseplants on wood. If you want to learn our top tips on growing houseplants on wood, click here.

6. Handmade Bamboo trellis

   Bamboo sticks are the easiest type of plant support to find and use but they can be a bit cumbersome. A single bamboo stick on its own, won't do much. They'll wobble around every time you pick up your pot and are difficult to stay upright on their own.

   I found it to be most effective to use twine or tape and tie 2-3 bamboo sticks together. You can cut the bamboo stick to the size you like and stick your new plant support in your planter. Now you can easily wrap the vines or any plant up the bamboo sticks.

7. BARE trellis decorated

   If you to get more fun shaped as plant supports, check out the trellises from Treleaf. We have a number of plant supports shaped as popular houseplant leaves.

   One collection that's perfect for making your own trellis is the Bare Collection. The trellis is left untreated so you can decorate however you like--paint, moss, glitter and more. The Bare Collection leaves behind the difficult part of DIYing and leaves only the fun, decorating part. You can find inspiration on how the plant community is DIYing their BARE trellises over here.