7 Best Trellis Netting Clips

We’ve all been there: a mid-summer thunderstorm rolls through, and the next morning you find your beautiful wall of cucumbers slumped in a heap on the ground. The cheap plastic clips you bought on a whim simply couldn’t handle the weight and the wind. Choosing the right clip for your trellis netting isn’t just a minor detail; it’s the critical connection point that protects your future harvest from gravity and weather.

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Pony Spring A-Clamps: The Indestructible Classic

Spring clamps are the duct tape of the market garden. They’re not elegant, but they are brutally effective and will likely outlast your trellis, your tools, and maybe even you. These heavy-gauge steel clamps with their bright orange vinyl tips have a bite that simply doesn’t let go. You can use them to anchor the corners of a 50-foot run of netting to a T-post or clamp down row cover so tight a hurricane couldn’t lift it.

Their versatility is their greatest strength. They’ll grab onto a wooden 2×4, a metal T-post, or a piece of PVC pipe with equal ferocity. This makes them perfect for the hobby farmer who improvises, using whatever materials are on hand to build a trellis. I keep a bucket of 2-inch and 3-inch clamps handy at all times for repairs and unexpected projects.

The tradeoff for this power is a lack of finesse. The immense pressure can wear on plastic netting over several seasons, creating weak points. They can also be cumbersome to apply and remove in large quantities, making them better for anchoring key stress points rather than securing every foot of a long run. Think of them as your structural anchors, not your everyday fasteners.

Farmer’s Friend Snap Clamps for EMT Trellises

If you’ve standardized your garden trellises around Electrical Metallic Tubing (EMT) conduit, then these are the clips you need. Snap clamps are specifically molded to fit perfectly around a certain diameter of pipe, creating a 360-degree grip that is incredibly secure without a single high-pressure pinch point. They are designed for this exact job.

The beauty of a snap clamp is its ease of use and its clean, professional look. You can attach a long run of netting in minutes, and the UV-stabilized plastic is designed to live outdoors for years without becoming brittle. Because they distribute pressure evenly, they are far gentler on your netting than a spring clamp, extending its useful life.

The obvious limitation is their specificity. A 3/4-inch snap clamp is useless on a 1-inch pipe or a wooden stake. This makes them a poor choice for an improvised system. But if you’ve invested in building a uniform, long-lasting trellis framework from EMT, these clips are the perfect finishing touch that makes the whole system work flawlessly.

Agfabric Film Clips for High Tunnel Durability

Don’t let the name fool you. While these clips are designed to hold greenhouse plastic onto the metal hoops of a high tunnel, their design makes them fantastic for trellis netting. They function like snap clamps but often have a wider, smoother contact area.

Their main advantage is being exceptionally gentle. The smooth, wide surface holds the netting securely without creating the sharp stress points that can lead to tears, especially with lighter-weight netting. They’re also built from high-quality, UV-resistant plastic, as they are intended for years of direct sun exposure on a greenhouse.

These are my go-to for any trellis inside a high tunnel or on a PVC low tunnel frame. They won’t abrade the greenhouse plastic they’re clamped against, and they provide a secure hold that’s easy to move and adjust. While they might lack the bulldog grip of a Pony clamp for a super high-tension field trellis, they are the ideal choice for protected culture and more delicate setups.

HORTOMALLAS Support Clips for Delicate Stems

This is a different beast entirely, and one that solves a problem many new growers don’t see coming. These clips don’t attach the net to the frame; they attach the plant to the net. For vining crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, and melons, these little hinged clips are a game-changer.

Instead of meticulously tying each leader to the trellis with twine, you simply guide the stem to the netting and click a support clip around it. The clip’s round design supports the stem without pinching or kinking it, which is a common cause of disease entry and nutrient flow restriction when using twine. This is especially critical for heavy-fruiting cucumber and tomato varieties.

The initial cost is higher than a ball of string, no doubt. But the time saved is immense, and more importantly, the number of plants saved from accidental stem damage is significant. Think of these not as a cost, but as insurance for the plants you’ve worked so hard to grow.

Red Brand T-Post Clips for Sturdy Fence Netting

When you need a semi-permanent or permanent trellis, look no further than the fencing aisle. The simple metal clips used to attach wire fencing to metal T-posts are an incredibly durable and cheap solution for securing heavy-duty netting.

These are for the set-it-and-forget-it trellises in your garden—the raspberry patch, permanent blackberry rows, or a perennial vine installation. Using a simple installation tool (or just pliers, in a pinch), you can securely fasten netting to a T-post in a way that will withstand years of weather, vine weight, and harvesting pressure. They are weatherproof, ridiculously strong, and cost pennies apiece.

The downside is their permanence. Removing them requires cutting or prying them off, so they are absolutely not for temporary setups or annual crop rotations where the trellis comes down each year. But for a long-term planting, they provide a level of security that no plastic clip can ever match.

Grip-Rite Hog Rings: An Unconventional Solution

Here’s a trick from the old-timers who know how to get things done cheaply and effectively. Hog rings, used in upholstery and for building animal cages, make for a fantastic, low-profile, and permanent netting fastener when paired with a wire-based trellis system.

The process is simple: you run a high-tensile wire or cattle panel between your posts, stretch your netting along it, and use hog ring pliers to crimp a hog ring around the trellis wire and a strand of the netting. The pliers make application incredibly fast, and the small metal rings are surprisingly strong. This is the fastest way to attach netting to a wire or grid-style trellis, bar none.

Like T-post clips, this is a permanent solution. You’ll be cutting the rings off at the end of the season if you want to save your netting. But for applications like a cattle panel arch for beans or a long run of peas on a wire trellis, the speed and low cost of hog rings are impossible to beat.

VELCRO Brand Garden Ties for Adjustable Support

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum from hog rings and T-post clips are reusable garden ties. These soft, double-sided strips of hook-and-loop material offer maximum adjustability and gentleness. You simply cut a length from the roll and wrap it around your netting and support structure.

The primary benefit here is the ability to re-tension. As plants grow and the netting sags under their weight, you can easily undo and tighten these ties in seconds. They are also exceptionally gentle on both the netting and the support structure, making them ideal for wrapping around young trees or tying netting to a painted porch railing.

Their grip is not as absolute as a clamp, so I wouldn’t rely on them to hold the primary tension on a very large, heavy trellis. They can also collect dirt and debris over time, making the hook-and-loop connection less effective. Use these for delicate jobs, temporary setups, or anywhere you anticipate needing to make adjustments mid-season.

Choosing Your Clip: Snap Clamps vs. Spring Clamps

This is the most common decision growers face when starting out. Both are excellent tools, but they solve different problems. The choice comes down to your overall garden strategy: are you building a standardized, repeatable system, or are you an improviser?

Snap clamps are for the systems-thinker. If you’ve decided to build all your low tunnels and trellises from 1/2-inch EMT, then buying the corresponding snap clamps is the most efficient, effective, and professional choice. They provide a perfect, non-damaging fit that makes setup and teardown a breeze. Their weakness is their inflexibility; they are a one-job tool.

Spring clamps are for the pragmatist. If your trellises are a mix of T-posts, salvaged 2x4s, and PVC hoops, the spring clamp is your universal translator. It will grab anything and hold on tight. Their brute force can be a liability, potentially damaging netting over time, but you can’t beat their versatility. They are the multi-tool you can rely on for any situation.

Ultimately, the best gardens often use both. Use heavy-duty spring clamps to anchor the high-stress corners of your trellis to whatever posts you’re using. Then, use the more refined snap clamps to fill in the gaps along the uniform lengths of your pipe structure.

The perfect trellis clip isn’t the most expensive or the strongest one; it’s the one that correctly matches the materials you’re using and the permanence of your setup. Thinking through this small detail saves you from mid-season failures and lost crops. It’s one of those little pieces of wisdom that turns a season of hard work into a successful, heavy harvest.