The trellis was a lattice of wood nailed to the side of the building. Thin strips crossed in a diamond pattern and the vine grew through it and the vine covered the wall and the wall disappeared behind green. The trellis was the building's invitation to the garden. Come up here. Cover me. Make me part of the yard.

The vine knew what to do. You planted the vine at the base of the trellis and the vine found the lattice and the tendrils wrapped around the wood and pulled the vine up the wall one diamond at a time. Morning glory. Wisteria. Grape. The vine did not need instructions. The vine needed a trellis and the trellis needed a vine and between the two of them the wall became a garden. The trellis without a vine is a skeleton. The vine without a trellis is a puddle.

The trellis made shade. A trellis over a patio with grape vines growing through it made a ceiling of leaves that filtered the sun and dropped little circles of light on the table. You sat under the trellis and drank lemonade and the light came through the leaves in patches and the patches moved with the wind. The trellis was the cheapest room you could add to a house. No walls. No roof. Just a lattice and a vine and time.

My grandmother had a trellis on East Seventh Street. The fire escape was the trellis and the tomato plant was the vine and the tomato grew up through the iron grate and by August the fire escape was a garden. She said the tomato did not know it was growing on a fire escape. The tomato thought it was growing on a trellis. The tomato was right. Any structure a vine can climb is a trellis. The fire escape just did not know it had a second job.

They sell plastic trellis at the hardware store. Snap-together panels that look like lattice but weigh nothing and hold nothing and the vine pulls them off the wall in the first wind. The wood trellis was nailed to the building and the building held it and the trellis held the vine and the vine held the flowers and the flowers held the bees. The plastic trellis holds a suggestion. A suggestion is not the same as a structure. The vine knows the difference even if you do not.

See also: Back Fence, Front Gate