Easy DIY Garden Decor Using Tree Branches

Several years ago, he made a chair out of branches from a maple tree we had to cut down. I wasn’t thinking about starting a gardening website back then, so we do not have pictures of the process.

It’s super cute, right. Unfortunately, it only lasted a few seasons. However, making me another branch chair is on his Honey Do List.

In the home we live in now, we have several big old maple and ash trees that are always dropping limbs and branches, so we have a ready supply for projects and bonfires. This is the pile of wood he started with. Please pay no mind to all the weeds and junk, it’s all contained in a neglected, unseen part of the yard.

I asked hubs if he could make me some type of rustic ladder trellis to lean against the fence for vines to grow on. He said easy and got to work. First we decided how tall we wanted the ladder, and he pulled out two longer branches and cut them to around 6 1/2 feet. Next, he cut the rungs, or the cross pieces. Simply decide the width you want your ladder and go from there.

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Once he had all the pieces cut, he went about putting the ladder together. To secure everything in place, he used his trusty Bostitch Brad Nailer.  Using a brad nailer made this project super easy, but if you don’t have one, you can use zip ties  wrapped around the branches in a figure 8 fashion to hold the rungs in place. To cover the zip ties, wrap over the zip ties with jute cord to hide them.

I loved the first one so much, that he ended up building another branch ladder.

The finished product turned out so cute and was super easy to build. I love them – they are perfectly imperfect!

As a reminder of this project, here’s a Pin you can pin to one of your
DIY or gardening boards on Pinterest. Thanks for pinning!

The taller tree branch ladder has silver lace vine growing on it.

Here’s the other branch ladder used as part of a little vignette in the shade. It has a Cathedral Bells vine growing on it, which will probably never flower because I have it in too much shade.

I later moved the shorter tree branch ladder and now have a clematis vine growing on it. It looks so sweet.

And, a closeup. The brad nails really don’t even show.

After seeing our ladders made from tree branches, our neighbor put together her own creation for vining plants like peas, cucumbers, etc to grow up. If you look closely you can see that she simply used garden twist ties to hold hers together.  I think it’s super cute and just another example of DIY projects you can do with tree branches.