BigW Metal Garden Arch £3.97

Wombat

As the title says, went into our local BigW and they had a stack of these bolt-together, green plastic covered, metal garden arches.

Approx. 8ft. high, 4ft. wide, 18ins. deep. They advise sinking them 1ft. into the ground, so you get an above-ground height of about 7ft. Perfect for what we wanted - growing Honeysuckle and another climber over a path.

And I thought a bargain at this price.

Can't see this in the Woolworths' website.

saintscouple

I noticed the same thing the other week, but posted on the 'worth it' thread on the shop but don't drop board'.
Only a couple of weeks earlier i had purchased the exact same thing from B&Q, just different packaging, for £8.97..... Yes i was gutted.
But never mind it works for us. Not the most stable of structures but pretty secure.
I used a long drill bit to drill into the ground, if you push this structure too hard it will buckle and perhaps even snap, so do be careful.

Wombat

Ah - sorry. I did a search on this board but not others.

I agree that the holes for sinking in the ground need to be made first. Pressing on the cross pieces to sink it will cause them to buckle. I hammered a large screwdriver into the ground and waggled it a bit to make the holes.

Once in the ground it appears to be pretty stable. Add a couple of climbers and the stability increases.

Poppycat

If its anything like the Wilkos one it will be lucky to survive one Winter they tend to be cheap and flimsy and easily buckle

gyinnit

Just picked one up in Newport - they had quite a few on the end of the aisles in the garden section.

Wombat

Poppycat wrote: »

If its anything like the Wilkos one it will be lucky to survive one Winter they tend to be cheap and flimsy and easily buckle

I don't know whether it's exactly the same construction, but APPEARS to be similar to this one on the Wilkos site:

http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/invt/0260859

gyinnit

Yep - that's pretty much what it looks like on the box from woolies - haven't opened it up yet to check it out.

BabyKat

i bought these from argos last year and i am going to replace them with wood in the next few weeks they rust quite quick and have broken off at the bottom hence replacing them with wood.

Wombat

BabyKat wrote: »

i bought these from argos last year and i am going to replace them with wood in the next few weeks they rust quite quick and have broken off at the bottom hence replacing them with wood.

I can understand that. Since the tubes are hollow and only plastic-coated on the outside, the effect of the moisture in the soil is going to be to rust the section which is sunk into the ground from the inside out.

For anyone else erecting one of these, I have a theory:

Fill the lowest 4 sections (the ones that are to be sunk) with grease or other waterproof substance (the fat from the Sunday roast or lard would do) up to the level of where the soil will come.

Make the holes in the ground to take the 4 legs (so that the soil isn't forced inside the tubular legs when sunk into the ground and displaces the grease).

Pop the legs into the holes and the grease should protect the inside of the tubes from rusting.

Note that this is only theory. It may be that, after all that, the moisture content of the air inside the rest of the structure or condensation could still cause rusting on the inside of the tubing.