Is it made of iron or aluminium? I would have to guess if it's iron, it would get very hot - aluminium not so hot.

Fran,
I don't believe that your wrought iron trellis will harm your plants. I use them in my 8aTX Zone with zero problems. Also, Jerry makes my trellises for me out of cattle panel. Very easy to do and they work perfectly.

I'll need to find a place to upload my photos so I can post on GW to show you my trellises *sigh* why do they make this so difficult!

Emma

Howdy Fran,

I get very hot here, and though some Ipoemeas seem to not love the hottest sun we get, I have successfully grown them up many kinds of arbors including iron. Along with many Passifloras, many Loniceras, Clytostema, Cobaea, and many more. My belief is that the stems are much more resilient than the leaves to the heat, so though leaves may wilt in the sun, the stems don't seem to absorb as much. I could be wrong, as I'm just basing my theory on my own observations.

I use wrought iron trellises and have never had any vines burn. It can get very hot during the summer here. The metal gets too hot for me to touch but the plants seem fine. It is kind of odd that the plants seem unaffected by the heat. I never really thought about it.

Thanks all for the info. I did get the trellis, far from the best kind and it is no where near tall enough for what I would really like, but for the price I couldn't go wrong for now.

Picked it up at Jo ann fabrics marked down. It was originally $24.99 and was supposed to be marked down 60%. BUT, the local store in town had it marked down to 80% off for July 4th only, which made it $4.99 and with an additional 10% off coupon that I had it ended up being $4.49.

It's about 4 feet tall when put in the ground, not the sturdiest going, but will serve the purpose for the sweet pea vines this year.

Will post a pic tomorrow, the sun is supposed to be out here on the east coast and be a beautiful day. Hard to believe the forecast, we haven't seen many of those kind of days for a long, long time.

Fran