Pipe cleaners and plasticine. Building design tools extraordinaire.
Several years ago I was playing around with pipe cleaners and the shape of three arches intersecting seemed to have potential. Not having enough hands to anchor all the ends, my eyes wandered around and made meaningful contact with the plasticine figures one of my sons was using in his animation. Knowing even chunks dug from the backs of the characters would not be smiled upon I hunted down the source in his room. I will not mention all that that involved but if you have had the experience of an adolescent male's bedroom you will likely just now have given a small shudder at the thought and a bit of an applaud for my audacity.
Back to the pipe cleaner saga. I put three blobs of plasticine on a table forming a triangle and then the ends of two arches in each of these blobs. Overlapped the rounds of the arches. Wow! Instant gazebo.
By adjusting the width at the base of the arches and the length of the pipe cleaners all sorts of possible structures presented - mini greenhouses, large garden dining areas, trellises.........
Solving the equivalent of pipe cleaners for these ideas took some perusing and experimentation. Smooth quarter-inch rebar finally met all criteria. It was flexible enough to bend, could be painted if desired, was budget-friendly - and - a twelve-foot length, bent, fit in my car. (Beware of the springback when unloaded: experience speaking here: it took two weeks for the bruise on my leg to go away.)
Having worked out the dimensions with the pipe cleaners (a 12 inch pipe cleaner to a 12 foot rebar) an appropriate size was decided upon and a pattern developed.
For the first gazebo an eight or nine (possibly ten, I forget exactly) foot base for triangle was measured out on the ground, a sunny spot in the long front yard, and a hole made at each corner by pounding in a foot long rebar stake and jiggling it around. (The man at the rebar store generously supplied this from the remnant stack.)
The best way to bend rebar and 'plant' it (one person can not do this, trust me!), is to have a person hold an end of the rebar at about waist level horizontally and then slowly walk towards each other until a nice even bend is achieved and then walk the arch to the first two holes. Do same for the next two pieces. If the holes in the ground are a foot or more in depth the arches will support themselves. Don't forget to allow for this foot or so in the original design.
Once all three are in the ground adjust the angles and then secure the rebar where they cross once the ideal structure has been achieved. Nylon rope will last, or heavy duty fishing line, but I then cover it with a more natural material like jute twine or rope or strips of burlap.
For the gazebo that was to be a seating area I let one arch dominate as the entrance, facing the view southward. A square piece of plywood, painted forest green, provided instant flooring and after a few years, when it had started to decay, enough earth worms had turned the clay-like soil underneath it into something more conducive to planting a living floor.
The covering on the gazebo varied - in the spring a large lacey tablecloth gave dappled shade, in the summer different colored shawls pegged onto the rebar frame with wooden clothes pegs provided more serious sun protection.
The latest structure is a gazebo trellis over a contained front garden. A wisteria vine that formerly chummed up a tree reached out almost instantly to the trellis and keeps a yearly hold. I planted a potato vine solanum jasminoides (gorgeous, underrated) on the second support and climbing nasturtium have yet to decide to do their thing up the third.
On the deck the same design has been used with four-foot lengths of a slim (1/8th inch perhaps) golden dowel over large flower pots in which red malabar climbing spinach has been planted. The result is very functional and beautiful.
The 'planted' rebar can also be used to form curvy and straight letters and spell out names along fences, against walls. Like MIMI. ANNA. Anything, really. It shifts and 'sings' in the wind.