It's not a marvelous invention (and maybe someone here will tell you about one of those) but I've found that the green-coated wire mesh available in hardware stores is way easier to handle than standard hex chicken wire. It has a square mesh about 2" across. It's not too expensive, either.

Kristin

Black mesh deer fencing is easy to work with (though it can get a little tangled)and is nearly invisible from even a very short distance.

Do you make a ring out of the chicken wire first and then set the cage around the plant/bush or are you trying to wrap it around an existing plant/bush and then anchor it?

I made a number of different size chicken wire rings and set them over the plants while the plants are first emerging in the spring. In the winter I store them by hanging them on nails I have put up high on my garage walls. When you put the nails up make sure you allow for the length of the wire cages to be hung, so that you are not hitting your head on them. I learned that one from experience. :(

Some of the things that I know the bunnies are going to try to eat in the winter, like my tiny barberry and spirlia bushes I put the wire cages around in the fall for over winter. When the bushes get big enough I will not need the chicken wire cages because I know that they won't be eaten then. The tender parts of the bushes are too high up for bunnies to get to and they don't tend to gnaw at the base of the thicker branches.

I use coat hangers cut with a wire cutter and bent into a "U" shape for anchors. I found that just setting chicken wire into the dirt does not keet the adorable little critters out, as they will bend the wire up from the ground and get through.

I actually found some "rabbit guard" at Lowes and started using that. It's thicker wire than chicken wire and easier to work with.

Or, as Elmer Fudd says, "Shoot the wabbit, shoot the wabbit"
8-)))

sprouting veggies in the raised beds get covered with a fairly ghetto-looking array of scavenged window screens. for precious flower seedlings, i bought some small wire mesh wastebaskets at an asian market. they're a couple bucks apiece, but they're stackable, a darling shade of baby blue, & they don't stab me like chicken wire cages did. i also reuse the tops of winter-sowing containers as cloches to cover newly-planted stuff for a short time.

my nemeses are the squirrels, so i only need to cover seedlings until they grow to about 3"-4" high -- big enough to fight back. if i had rabbits or deer, i'd put a cage around the entire yard & hire a security guard dog.

man...i forgot about what wabbits do to a yard, actually they already ate one of my bushes, after surviving two or three puppie attacks....oh well...anyway, i really like havn a wabbit inthe yard cuz it poops everywhere, and i could really use the organic matter in the ground....speaking of which, would it be a good idea like say...if you owned a rabbit to compost all of it's poopykins?? i read somewhere that it is higher in N, P, and K than cow, chicken, or horse manure!

There was one a gossamer fabric called floating row cover that was very good a keeping insects away. Do rabbits and deer figure out how to not be foiled by it?

chainlink fence
www.wiremeshworldcn.com

This is for small plants. I buy all the wire mesh hanging baskets I can find at garage sales and thrift stores, even if rusty. I throw out the nasty coco mats, remove the hanging chains and turn the wire baskets upside down over my tender plants. The bunnies and squirrels will leave the plants alone. I have three perennial Geraniums under these wire baskets right now. You can also tie on strips of cut up Mylar balloons that will flutter in the wind. That also scares off critters. I got lucky and found a huge roll of audio tape that will flutter in the smallest breeze. That will be tied on my wire baskets.
Trowelgal

There is a product called Rabbit Fencing.I've purchased it at Cal Ranch and at Tractor Supply. It's the perfect thing. Easy to cut and make a cage. It has small openings on the bottom that get larger towards the top. We have loads of cottontails and also chickens that like to eat plants and young trees and it works great to protect plants. Its easy and effective.

Here is a link that might be useful: rabbit fencing