Make me feel better. Any of you all ever get a little extreme protecting your garden from deer or moles?

Arktrees

I use wire cages around many of my trees, but I wouldn't really call that overboard. It works well for deer and many smaller animals.

ken

I can just picture a nude dude, red all over with 2 black eyes and an evil snarl on his face, with a willow switch in one hand and Jim Beam in the other whipping himself like a lunatic while the racoons, rabbits, squirrels and deer all gathered at the forest edge watch in horror! I know you meant "latched" instead of "lashed" but man that was a funny mental image XD

LOL Brandon

Toronado, you could use black plastic bird netting and a post on either side of the tree. The netting freaks out the deer nearly as much as Ken freaked out his neighbors.

tj

I had very good results this past summer hanging mesh and/or plastic bags with rotten quail eggs in some of my young apple trees. I did some in the mesh type bags that things like onions come in. Some of the others I did in ziploc type plastic bags with some holes punched in them to allow the odor to escape. I noted that the plastic bags smelled worse and longer, because rain got in there and made a vile smelling brew. Both worked, though.

Honestly, there were a few times when I was walking the dog on still mornings and got close enough, say within 10-15 feet, of the rotten eggs to get a good whiff, and it turned my stomach, so it was kind of nasty to do, but it worked.

No special reason it has to be quail eggs, I just used those because I raised some Japanese quail and decided these small eggs were too small to bother with in the kitchen. Any eggs would work, just let them get stinky -- crack the shells a bit so bacteria can get in there, but not so much that the contents ooze all out.

And then in the fall, which we did yesterday, we put up a 6 foot green galvanized hardware cloth on the outside of that fence to keep the rabbits out. Our snow line is about 4-4.5 feet so we need about 2 feet higher than that.

I also, in the fall, wrap white tree wrapping around the trunks all the way up to the first branches. I use this red "outdoor" tape that is a very bright red and I swirl the tape around it. The trunks look exactly like candy canes which our 6 year old daughter loves to look out and see them. We have a major vole issue out here so also mulch with pea gravel instead of anything else since mulch, at least where I live, attracts more voles.

Then I take a somewhat larger gravel, I forget what it's called, but it's at Home Depot, and I pour 4 bags of that rock around the outside of each fencing to keep the voles from getting any ideas of wanting to burrow underneath the fences. It's worked perfectly now for 2 years and we have a lot of voles.

My neighbors would definitely consider what I do as going overboard. The Christmas tree farmer next door doesn't do ANYTHING to his trees, he doesn't water them or anything, and neither does my other next door neighbor who planted a sugar maple ON OUR PROPERTY LINE. He did that 5 years ago, and I nearly went into cardiac arrest over it. I didnt say anything to him, but thankfully he hasn't taken care of it at all. He doesn't mulch, or even water the tree, and he weedeated way to close to it, and cut 90% of the trunk at the very bottom all the way around. Thankfully it is on the decline.

I love trees, but I don't want a sugar maple planted on our property line, especially when the sugar maple would only be 15 feet or so from our back door. This is one time I am glad someone didnt take care of their tree, and it appears to be dying frankly. I feel guilty for even saying that, but this neighbor let one of his weeping willows stay up when he knew it was dead and one of it's gigantic branches came down and crashed into our backyard, and it was only then that he cut the tree down. He doesn't take care of his trees at all, which is why I don't want to deal with that maple 25 years from now.

So far the soap has worked on the generic red maple. Just seems too good to be true.

All my friends already got their deer this season....

Perhaos i will use Ken's method!

i dont know if that is a curse.. or a god send.. lol

no.. i was thinking lashed.. as in a pirate lashing his enemy to the main mast ... bound and gagged.. and ready to die for the cause .... sorta a Christ on the cross mind picture .... [but for the drunken stupor, or course ...] .. one must sacrifice for the salvation of his flock .. or collection ... [I am going to burn in hell.. dont you think]

ken

ps:.. real answer ... 4 foot sections of corrugated drain pipe.. slit length-wise ... 4 foot in case of 2 feet of snow ... left on for a few years .... and some were attacked the year it was removed ...

I haven't done too much for trees, except the first winter after planting some expensive Emerald Green Arborvitae, I wrapped them with bird netting to keep the deer from munching. Just did that one year though, and the deer haven't bothered them even without bird netting. If the deer are really hungry, they have numerous meatball and meatloaf Yews to eat in the neighbor's yard, which they seem to like even more than Arborvitae.

I do protect some veggies with wire fencing that has a 2x4 inch grid. Cut it down to the desired height and encircle the plants. I also leave sharp pokey wire ends sticking up to deter deer and woodchucks. This works very well, although I have to be careful not to skewer myself! This type of fencing would probably work equally well for trees.