10 Innovative Uses for Chicken Wire
With a name like "chicken wire," you'd think this popular metal fencing product is a bit of a one-trick pony, but it's actually anything but. Sure, you can use chicken wire for building safe enclosures for chickens and patching damaged chicken fencing, but it's good for a whole lot more than that.
Posted — UpdatedCloches protect tender plants from frost and hard weather, and they can be a pain to make, especially when you don't need anything very large -- like if you just need to protect the contents of a few pots. Use chicken wire to create a frame you can drape with frost cloth or torn up sheets (a great way to recycle old bedding) for a quick and easy protective cloche in harsh weather. You can use the same trick to control fruit flies with a muslin-covered cloche that fits over your fruit bowl.
Deer love tender plants, and spring is one of the worst times for deer predation because so many plants in the garden are putting out brand new shoots. Keep deer away from your apple seedlings, delicate wisteria, and other garden friends with chicken wire cages. It doesn't look pretty, but it will help your plants stay alive! Secure it to the ground and the wire will also keep out bunnies, rats, and squirrels -- if necessary, sink approximately two inches of the wire underground to keep out digging pests.
If you want to train ivy and other climbing plants, build a chicken wire frame for them to sprawl over. Over time, the chicken wire will be covered, and you'll have a fantastic shape in the garden. (Support the chicken wire with dowels if it's large or has a lot of empty spaces.)
If you want something a little different than the usual corkboard for holding information, messages, mail, and more, consider chicken wire. Find an old frame (window, picture, mirror, or otherwise) and staple chicken wire across it; use clips to hold paper and other materials to the organizing center so you can keep current on where people are, where they're going, and what they should be doing.
Have a gopher problem? Bury chicken wire under your garden beds, stapling it to the sides to keep digging paws away. Chicken wire will eventually break down, though, so for a long-term solution you'll want sturdier hardware cloth.
