perhaps you missed dax's unrelated title at the link

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Sorry Ken - I don't know what that means. The link on your post is to a Google search on crepe myrtle cuttings.

cedrus with buck damage - branches cut off and trunk ringed by antlers

yup. Those are buck rubs. If you only have a few trees to protect, just wrap a girdle of chicken wire deer-head high around the middle of the tree in early autumn. They hit the metal and don't like it.

~Dave

From one SW Ohio coniferite to another, I have tried all of the standard folk remedies. Soap, hair and various liquid applications that last until it rains. Their efficacy seems short lived in our environment. I only use one strategy now and it has proven 100% successful, but rather aesthetically challenging. Take one plain Jane athletic sock and fill it 1/2 way with Milorganite and tie it on to a branch at the proper height. The Milorganite will leach out over the winter months and the smell will persist after all of the snow and rain. The fertilizer released from the sock is negligible as this product has less than 5% nitrogen so it doesn't effect the dormancy of your trees.
One word of caution. Your neighbors may voice their displeasure at the "Hillbilly XMas Tree Ornaments" hanging about your yard, but they work and they are very inexpensive.

Hehe Bax, that sounds like one for the Milorganite folks' marketing team to know about!

+oM

I don't know if the Milorganite folks even know about this application. I was told about it by a couple of sweet corn farmers that used it on the perimeter of their fields.

I was mostly joking. ;^)

A couple years ago, the Milwaukee Sewerage Comission or whatever it's called was pretty much giving the stuff-Milorganite-away. We filled a large pole building with the stuff. I didn't have anything directly to do with this but I believe we were paying only for the trucking.

I wonder if simply broadcasting some of this material on the ground under vulnerable trees would repel critters.

+oM

I get a little Buck damage every few years. This Sequoia sempervirens got pushed almost over. It was leaning over the driveway so I temporarily propped it up for a few months. It will be alright and is growing very fast.
I have too many small trees on ten acres to protect them all.
The area pictured is slowly getting landscaped.
Mike

You've just got the ding-danged nicest settings there, Botann man. BTW, get a little rain lately?

;^)

+oM

Take one plain Jane athletic sock

==>> whats a fancy jane sock???

and who the heck is jane anyway..

and why are her socks important???

so many questions.. so little time ...

ken

ps: under this theory.. could one just hang used diapers around the garden ?? ... and would you.. thereafter.. be the talk of the town.. or at least jane and all her friends anyway .... or on the other end of the age scale.. janes depenz????

Having used Milorganite I can tell you that the sight of socks might be the second thing your neighbors notice. I know it is sterilized, but this doesn't eliminate the odor. It really stinks, but it does keep deer, rabbits and I guess a lot of other critters away.

My next door neighbor had a Bichon Frise that used to love to visit and roll in it right after going to the groomers.

Jon

+oM, this time of year I garden in a wet suit. Water management is a top priority as I have ten ponds that flow downhill into each other.
Hey, it beats shoveling snow!

I was going to have a fire, but the water level came up quicker than I could get to it,....and it's not full yet. (it is now) Looks like I will burn the pile next summer. Meanwhile, it will be a nice place for the pond critters to crawl out of the pond as it recedes next year.
Keeping to the conifer theme, that brown tree in the background is a Taxodium distichum.
Mike

Heh, for a minute there, I thought you had a beaver dam at the pond's end.

In the foreground-are those blackberry lilies? I just grew some of them this year for the first time. Neat plants. Also, the first largish conifer on the left side as picture is viewed-Norway spruce?

Speaking of snow, I'd imagine the slopes to your east are getting "some"!

+oM

Foreground is Crocosmia.
The conifer on the left is a small Thuja plicata.
Yes, snow has happened on the east side of the Cascade Mountains. A lot of rain here in the last few days.
Mike

I shudder whenever I read the title of this thread as it brings to mind the departed trees that I tried to establish on our slope in W Washington state. Our yard had been a pasture that a former owner mowed to make a "lawn", planting only a few trees on 2 1/2 acres. It really needs more trees!

However, our slope seems to be a main thoroughfare for bucks in the fall. Every year I plant a couple more trees, but every year I lose some that are too badly thrashed. I've lost western larch, ponderosa pine, subalpine fir, silver fir, EXPENSIVE full moon maples, other maple sp., stewartias, grafted fir. Once I surprised my husband by swearing and screaming when we drove in to see a silver fir (Abies amabilis) reduced to a pile of rubble, as he didn't know I was capable of such behavior. I had cared for this fir from its seedling-hood, and it had started to take off so I could envision the beautiful tree it was to become. As the trunk was completely girdled almost down to the ground, I cut it off right below the girdling hoping it would make a branch at its base to become a new leader. But that didn't happen. This had worked for a subalpine fir, which is now a multi-trunked tree.

I put up barricades in the fall and take them down in January. I try to guess which trees don't need barricades as they are too small or too large and stiff to be suitable antler velvet grooming. And I try to guess when the bucks will start showing up. But I get neither of these right. In the middle of August when we finally have summer, I am not ready to think of fall (and copious rain). But the bucks seem to be showing up earlier now, and as soon as one of us spots a horned critter, we aren't be surprised to find damage the next morning.

When I have help, I put up sturdy circular wire cages using 4-foot high cattle fencing and steel posts. When I don't have help I put up flimsier square compost cages around vulnerable trees. For deciduous trees with branchless trunks up to a few feet, I instead clip plastic tubes around the trunks. I think the deer put their heads down when attacking the trees, as they are not damaged above 4 feet.

Well, we all have frustrations and dashed dreams, and you, dear conifer lovers, have hit on mine with this thread.

Today's visitor, a not-so-dear deer (Columbian black-tailed deer - Odocoileus hemionus columbianus)