My backyard has a vibe: “big empty block wall that looks like it’s judging me.”
If you live in Vegas, you know the look. Eight feet tall, fifteen feet wide, sun-blasted, beige-on-beige, radiating heat like it’s trying to cook you from the side.
Naturally, my first thought was: I should build something unnecessarily complicated onto this.
And thus, the trellis project was born.
Why a Trellis?
Because I wanted green. I wanted life. I wanted something softening the “Nevada Prison Yard Chic” energy my wall was giving.
I also wanted a project — something physical, something I could measure and cut and mount, something that wasn’t YAML or Figma frames or debugging Terraform for reasons unknown.
And honestly? I sometimes just like building things I have no business building.
Enter Star Jasmine, my favorite foliage for pretending the desert isn’t trying to kill everything with roots. It grows beautifully with just enough water, it climbs, and when it blooms, it smells like the backyard is apologizing for the months of heatstroke it caused.
All it needed was a structure.
The Plan (Which Easily Changed 12 Times)
Here’s the blueprint I landed on:
A wooden lattice spanning 15’ wide and 8’ tall
Mounted entirely to the block wall, no ground anchors
Held off the wall by 1.5–2" standoffs
Strong enough to support growing vines
Designed to survive the Vegas sun (or at least not combust immediately)
I wanted the trellis floating just enough off the wall so the vines could weave, breathe, and not end up plastered flat against a heat-soaked surface that gets… what, 200º in July?
Materials: AKA The Part Where Home Depot Gets My Money
Wood
I debated cedar, redwood, or pressure-treated lumber. Vegas sun eats wood for breakfast, so cedar won: light, sturdy, holds up well, and smells like a lumberjack hug.
Standoffs
I considered 2" wood blocks but ultimately flirted with aluminum standoffs because:
They won’t rot
They look clean
And let’s be honest — they make the project feel unnecessarily legit
Screws & Anchors
Masonry screws rated for block, deep enough to bite but not so long they come out the neighbor’s side of the wall.
(If you’ve ever drilled into Vegas block, you know: it’s either butter or diamond. No in-between.)
Finish
Exterior-rated seal to keep the wood alive longer than my previous outdoor projects.
The Build: Where I Question My Decisions in Real Time
Step 1: Measuring
Measure once, measure twice, measure again because you’re sweating and the tape is bending and the wall isn’t as perfectly straight as it pretends to be.
Step 2: Pre-Drilling
Pilot holes into the lattice pieces.
Pilot holes into the standoffs.
Pilot holes into the masonry.
This is where drill bits go to die.
Step 3: Mounting the First Row
Once the first horizontal piece goes up level, the rest follows… theoretically. In practice, it involved:
Staring
Adjusting
Remeasuring
Holding my breath
And asking the wall nicely to behave
Step 4: Creating the Lattice
This was the fun part — building out the grid pattern, locking everything together, stepping back and realizing:
“Oh damn. This is actually going to look good.”
Step 5: Sealing and Admiring
I sealed everything, stood back, wiped the desert dust from my forehead, and felt that warm satisfaction of making a physical thing exist in the world.
What I Learned (So You Don’t Have To Learn It the Same Way)
Vegas heat will warp anything not braced well enough. Overbuild the mounting points.
Don’t skip the standoffs — they make the final result look intentional and improve airflow.
Pilot holes save lives. Especially masonry drill bits.
Buy more screws than you think. And then double it.
The wall is never actually flat. So your trellis shouldn’t expect it to be.
The Outcome: A Wall With Purpose
Now the once-judgmental block wall has a home for Star Jasmine.
The lattice looks clean, modern, and just a little extra (like me).
And in a year or two — once the vines climb and bloom — the backyard will look like a tiny oasis instead of a holding cell.
More importantly?
It felt damn good to build something with my hands.
No push notifications.
No commits.
No sprint reviews.
Just wood, screws, sunlight, and a project that reminds me doing real things in the real world is good for the soul.