Dura-Trel 11160 Country Garden Trellis

bought two and thought twice about it due to earlier comments noting how difficult this is to assemble.i followed another reviewer who assembled it the opposite way of the instructions enclosed. he was right.it took me maybe 12 minutes to fully assemble each unit, super easy, no rubber mallet required.i slid one slat through the center brace center hole, put the center brace on the floor with the slat sticking uphorizontally. then i slid all other cross braces down that one slat. i slid two more slats through all the cross braceson either side of the first slat. next i turned the crossbraces upright and proceeded to slide two more slats thtroughthe cross braces. i turned this upside down and did the same for the last two slats.i laid down on beam on the floor and lined up the crossbraces the best i could before starting at the second to lastopening on the beam, working my way down to the left inserting the others. finally i inserted each end cap at an angleinto the outside holes on the beam, you may have to lift up the crossbrace next to it slight to snap the end cap in place.then i just laid the other beam on top and worked my way down until all cross braces and end caps were inserted fully.then just screw in the 6 screws to the beams and the hard part is done.best of luck. this turned out much easier than i thought possible. my wife loves the trellises and i am thankful for theearlier advice posted here.

I recently bought the Dura-Trel Cottage Trellis and was very pleased it with so bought two of these larger Country Garden Trellis and deeply regretted it. The Cottage version was relatively easy for one person to put together, the Country Garden was a NIGHTMARE. My advice – if you need more width, get two of the Cottage version. To those people who said it was easy to put together, I don’t know if we purchased the same product, but I can’t imagine anyone considering this easy to put together, and I put together Ikea stuff regularly. If you do decide to get the Country Garden one, here are my suggestions. First, this is VERY HARD to put together with only one person. I assume having two must make it easier, but since it was only me, I can’t say for sure. Second, the reason it gets 2 stars vs 1 is given the amount of pounding, stepping, dragging, and bending I had to do to put it together, the fact that it didn’t crack was pretty impressive. Third, to put it together you will need a) a towel or carpet to put it on unless you want to scuff up both it and your floor; b) a rubber mallet (which means you will get scuff marks all over it from that – if you want it pristine white at the end, I have no idea how to do that; c) a flat-head screwdriver.To assemble it solo, you will need to use arms, legs, and lean it against something all that the same time. The horizontal bar holes are NOT CENTERED, so make sure you have all the slots have their off-centers on the same side. The vertical slats do not easily fit into the horizontal ones, so plan on using a rubber mallet to force it thru the each side of the horizontal bar. It then will then not align with the hole on the far side, so use the flat-head screwdriver to wiggle it into the right spot, so you can then hammer it through. Having long arms and being ambidextrous will also help a lot. When putting in the vertical slats, start with #3, then #s 1 and 5, then lastly #2 and 4. Doing it in that order will make each successive one easier. Also, the “caps” don’t fit very well (which they did on the Cottage one), so I use liquid nails. As a relatively short, not hugely strong, but fortunately flexible solo buyer, it took me about 2+ hours to do the first one, and then once I figured out the tricks, about 1 hour to do the second one. Lots of hunched over pounding in the slats, and lots of pinched flesh trying to get things to align. As others have said, you can’t screw in the extension posts as they don’t have starter holes, so I just used liquid nails for that too, and will hope for the best. Since I had the same problems with two of them, I don’t think it was just a freak manufacturing error. I can only assume those who said it was easy had an extra pair of hands, or are extremely handy themselves, or had long arms and equipment they could use to steady/hold it in place as you weaved together the slats.

I bought 7 of these to go along my neighbor’s fence for grape vines. I think they’re very sturdy and should last a long time in the Southern California sun. I did encounter several of the issues that others did however: a couple of the horizontal bar holes weren’t aligned from top to bottom on the same bar; it was difficult to hold together while inserting the vertical bars; black rubber mallets can leave marks; and getting the vertical slats in the horizontal holes were not always easy.Here were my solutions: I assembled the uprights and the horizontal bars on a lifetime table. It hung over the edge but it allowed for standing up during assembly. I used long bungee cords to hold the two main uprights tighter together while I inserted the vertical bars. I used the yellow end of a rubber mallet that had two sides to it to keep from marking the white plastic. And I nipped the corners off the end of the vertical bar and taped the front and back to each other to ease insertion into the horizontal bar holes (see picture). This last was a great improvement, It let the vertical bars slide in like butter. I sent a suggestion in to Dura-Trel to cut the ends like that so everyone will have less trouble. I didn’t come up with a solution for the misaligned holes, except to use a utility knife to cut a tab off the side of the hole that the slat needed to go through.Otherwise I really like these and think it was worth the trouble. I hope this review helps.

These are great. I installed 4 of them side by side to support a viney japanese maple we planted 2 years ago for a privacy fence. It looks really good. The build quality is pretty nice.I would say i established a very strange assembly process since that's what most people talk about. I tried to do it the way they recommend in the assembly manual, but that way sucked. So, my method:1. lay all horizontal pcs out next to each other laying flat on the ground.2. space closest to you out about 6 inches and insert first vertical pc.3. push first vertical pc thru all horizonal pcs.4. repeat this for all vertical pcs. you're actually trying to move the horizontal pieces to each other as you push the vertical through.5. put both top and bottom horizontal pcs on.6. put first vertical side piece on after spacing horizontal pieces out evenly.7. put second vertical side piece on, forcing horizontal pieces in place as needed and using a dead blow hammer to tap some into slots.8. install screws.This allowed me to assemble the last 2 of 4 in about 5 mins each. The first one per manufacturers instructions, because the horizonal slot positions were off significantly, was kind of a nightmare, i won't lie. But establishing my own system was the right way to go.I also don't like the stakes provided. I bought some 8 foot long 5/8 galvanized grounding rod from a big box store and cut them in half, then drove them in 3 feet. I then drilled 3 thru holes in them to screw through the vinyl into treated 2x2's to make them really sturdy.That said, still gets 5 stars, because all i wanted was the assembly and i knew i'd have to rig up a staking system and linking system.

The media could not be loaded.  All of the slots in the cross rails must be in alignment (centered) or you’ll have to fight to force the 5-vertical slats through. It’s near impossible to force the vertical slats through the hollow cross rails with so little tolerance between the cross rails of even one is miss-cut. Mine are way off.