cziga:

It is possible that your grape plant was given to you for dead because it really was dead. No amount of rooting hormone, soaking in water, or the most tender care will bring a plant back from the dead.

If you have already put the plant in the ground, leave it where you planted it. If there is the spark of life left in this grapevine, pulling it out and potting it up now would finish it off for sure.

Why do you have to trellis the grapes up the side of your house? It would seem you could build a trellis right next to the house, and allow the grape to spread laterally as grapes are inclined to do.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I know, it is possible that it is dead. I am going to try to bring it back - lots of times, plants can be revived with a bit of love and the proper attention. And grapes are pretty resilient, I just don't know exactly what the "proper" attention would be...

The thing is, the grapes (the only space for them) is on the house. If the trellis were a little away from the house and still straight up, it might work . . . but I don't quite understand what you mean? You mean like a windmill shaped trellis? But standing away from the house?

Just soak in water and plant. Rooting hormone will do nothing but inhibit any live buds from pushing. If there is a live bud near the roots, it will push. If not, then it is dead, even with live roots (grapes can't produce adventitious buds).

. . . and another question about training the plant:

I train one main stem to develop, going upwards. I prune it just above a bud, so that it splits into 2 arms, and train them sideways, about 3 ft above the ground. The main stem keep going up to the second wire (about 6 ft above the ground), or trellis arm, and then I prune it again to develop 2 more side shoots, which are again trained sideways. So it now looks like:

---[---
....[
---[---
....[
....[
(ground)

[ = main stem
-- = side stems
(and ignore the ... they were just to get the spacing right)
Looks kind of like a backwards F and a right shaped F right next to each other?

Is this right?

Then each spring, before it grows, I prune the side arms back but I never prune the main trunk? Doesn't the main trunk get old?

I don't know why I'm having so much trouble picturing this, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

That is one way to do it, but you can just use a single wire as well. Some growers train the cordons to the lower wire only, but also use an upper wire for extra support of the upright growing canes. I like to use a single wire 5 ft off the ground for better air circulation.

For a good tutorial on pruning grapes, see the link below. This is an excerpt from Lon's book, The Grape Grower, which I highly recommend for anyone interested in grapes.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lon Rombough's grape pruning page

See the link below from Oregon State University, it has some great pictures to explain the pruning/training. I agree with Kiwinut... I use a single wire about 5-6 feet from the ground.

Here is a link that might be useful: Grape Growing

I recommend buying that book, The Grape Grower. It has a lot of great pictures and explanations of exactly what you need to do and why. I've found it to be an excellent resource.

That's actually a really great book (excerpts) . . . thanks a lot, very helpful info. Especially the photos!

What type of grape is it? Some grapes grow with the canes growing up (European grapes) and some grow with the canes drooping (American grapes). This determines the height of the trellis wire for your cordon arms.