Hammering Nails into Magnolia (raccoons)

Hi,

I am thinking of installing some "porcupine wire" (brand name 'nixalite' or something similar) around the trunk of my Magnolia tree. The crown of the tree is about 33' wide and the raccoons are climbing the tree to access my porch roof, then chewing on my house. I can't really prune far enough away from the house because one of the main structural branches is very close to the house and I don't want to cut it.

My question is, would hammering the nails required to install the product (maybe 30 or so galvanized nails) be harmful to the tree? (And if the nails are bad, then are there any other suggestions about how to outfit the tree so the critters can't climb it?)

Thanks.

 

I' generally against nailing anthing into live healthy trees.

You might try this idea that we have been using at different site with pretty good success.
What we use are motion activated sprinklers. We have found that raccoons, squirles, and other critter do not like a blast of cold water on thier nightly romps. You may have to move the location of the spriklers a few times but we fin within a week to 10 days that they get the idea.

Also have someone check out the section on the roof that they are chewing on.(apparently there is a sourse of food)
I mean the side of a house is not generally a racoons food source.
hope this helps
doug

 

There's no food source up there, what she's doing is trying to enlarge a small hole that's in the woodwork there already so that she can get inside for a den or whatever. I could cover over that hole with chicken wire, but if I can keep them out of the tree then they can't access the porch roof at all, that would be best. Thanks for the advice about the motion activated sprinklers, I had seen those on the web but my first thought was that it seemed gimicky, so it's nice to know that they work for you. I'd still like to know if nails are really harmful to trees, if anyone can answer definitively. :)