Project Grow is a 53 year old community gardening program that leases garden plots at various garden sites throughout the Ann Arbor area to community members.

We are one of the smallest garden sites within the Project Grow organization and are located on the grounds of Wines Elementary School in northwest Ann Arbor.
We erected a perimeter fence in 2021 to limit the damages done by deer, groundhogs, and rabbits. This fence held up well until the last few years, but has developed multiple holes due to the lawn maintenance crew using heavy blades on their weed trimmers. Unfortunately, these holes have allowed rabbits and other small critters to enter the garden area and eat most of the crops planted in the spring. This has been very frustrating and discouraging to both children and adults that garden at this site and we need to find a better solution.
We would like to replace the chicken wire at the button of the fencing with a sturdier wire fencing called "hardware cloth" of "welded wire." This will serve as a dual purpose of keeping out critters and holding up to the lawn maintenance crews and their weed whips.

This type of fencing has a 20-30 year life, se we feel this will solve our problems. The gardeners at this site already pay an additional fee to pay for the initial cost of erecting the fence, and many would struggle to pay another fee.