Some of us have a harder time learning lessons than others. Unfortunately I have to put myself in that category. After preaching about deer repellents earlier in the season, I completely forgot to appy some to my own plants!! My poor 'Bloodgood' was decimated (see pics), and about 15 other cultivars got an unwelcomed "hair-cut". The good news is this - my 'Bloodgood' was a nursery rescue, so it really didn't cost me anything cause it was half dead when I got it. After a year of TLC, I was hoping it would start to look somewhat normal this season, but now I think its about to become a bunch of Bloodgood scions! Good thing I started grafting... ;-)
They will be back, knowing he food source is waiting for them, the following is not for the squeamish.... put about the yard or specific area, any accumulated dog hair, your own hair, fresh urine trays and plastic pop bottles filled with urine, it works...you will need to have a few dozen set around the property... fresh dog poop will also be beneficial and hang the poop in mesh on the subject plants... not quite the scenic factor but over a few months , the deer will appear less often to graze...
My preferred repellent is blood. It scares the @$%!* out of the deer - triggers their fear response. There's a commercial repellent made from pig blood that lasts four to six months, and I've also found that blood meal does an admirable job. Its also a fertilizer, so I get both benefits! This past winter I also invited a bunch of hunters to my property for an event I call 'Bambi-fest'. There are four fewer chewing mounths in the herd now...not enough to prevent any and all damage, but every little bit helps. Plus they were all does, which means the reproductive potential of the herd just went down significantly.
Sorry, Doug, about the deer. They hit my tree roses out front starting in June every year, but I forgot and in my recent attempt to plant maples from pots to cut my water needs in our drought I planted 6 small maples all with red or yellow bark between those tree roses but now your message tells me I better dig them up and move them before they are eaten. Thank you.
I unfortunately have a fair amount of deer experience given how little maple experience I have! As others have mentioned there is no such thing as "deer proof" with the exception of Good fencing. It is not feasible to fence our garden and for me, putting fences around each tree is possible but defeats the ultimate purpose of having something pretty to look at (my young trees are so small it would be 5+ years that the fence would be required). With this in mind here is what I have "learned": 1) http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1568&context=icwdm_usdanwrc here is one of the better studies I have seen. Again, it emphasizes that there is no such thing as a deer proof, but with regular application some noxius stimulants can be reasonably effective. One thing that bugs me is that all of the deer repellents leave rather unsightly whitespots that ruin photos, so a good spraying just before bud break can give at least a few weeks unblemished. without evidence to support the practice, I change up the deer sprays so they dont get used to any one 2) I am embarassingly maple centric. so these are the only things I spray in the garden, hopefully making all else more palatable 3) We have 2 dogs, and unfortunately urine, feces, and hair have proven to be little deterrent for us 4) Buy big - I used to buy smallest grafts possible thinking that it would be the most economical. This is not the case. A larger graft in highly deer populated area seems to have much better survival rate to justify the cost. The two deer deaths that I have had have been small grafts that the deer munched down to the understock. For grazing the deer seem to prefer the small shrub like trees and have left the larger more tree like varieties less disturbed. Think about it: if a deer takes 5 bites from your tree, that can be 50% of a young graft but just 5% of something a fair amount larger. 5) If you have a particularly bad deer area consider lower grafts, or at the least avoid pruning low branches. The low branches seems to help reduce deer rub on the main trunk. 6) Plant closer to the house. These are the one sets of trees that have been left entirely alone. They seem to have avoided anything near hardscape
