In addition, if you choose to use a chainsaw for your cutting, you should use protective eyewear and steel-toed shoes. For the small amount of cutting needed for this project, however, I do not recommend using this noisy, dangerous beast. My preference is to cut and limb the tree saplings with a hatchet and buck the saplings with a bowsaw. Hand tools allow you to enjoy a project like this so much more peacefully than do power tools! Ax-work is becoming a lost art. With a little practice and common-sense safety awareness, this can be a relaxing, fun project -- something to bring out the long-lost woodsman or woodswoman in your soul....

Here's a brief overview before we begin. The idea is to make four forked poles tall enough to sink about 2' into the ground around your bush and still have the top of the pole about 1' above the bush. By "forked" I mean a pole fashioned so as to form a V-notch at the top. One side of the V-notch is simply the top of the trunk (where you've cut it off from the rest), the other side a branch that you've left on, trimming it so as to jut out about 8". Six crosspieces will also be fashioned: two to sit in the forked poles, paralleling each other; the other four to lie on top of these, perpendicular to them. You're essentially forming a grid pattern, which will serve as a structure for your "roofing" materials.

Step-by-step directions for the project follow below. When you see a small picture (thumbnail) to the right of a step, and you're interested in blowing it up for a closeup view, just click on it.

Now fashion your six crosspieces. These are simply straight (relatively) lengths of wood, with any branches limbed. In this example, we need them to be 6' long. Rather than cutting separate tree saplings to fashion these, you may well be able to derive them from the "scrap" left over from Step 4. Thumbnail at right shows the results of your cutting operations.

But you're not done yet! Continue on to Part 3 for the final steps in this shrub winterizing project.