How to protect woody plants from deer and other browsers
Ever wonder what the Nez Perce, creators of the appaloosa horse breed, fed their horses during winter? When the grasses are gone and leaves have fallen there’s one American tree that could be relied upon to provide forage: the cottonwood. During hard times, Native Americans harvested the softer inner bark known as the cambium due to its moist sweetness and vitamin content. It was also fed to horses, and Lewis and Clark wrote often about this in their famous journals. John C. Fremont’s horses wintered in Reno, Nev., on little more than these inner bark starvation rations.
Such history explains why drought presents such a threat to our long-lived woody trees and shrubs. When nature’s challenges reduce the amount of natural food for wildlife, be it the depths of winter or the dog days of summer, they will come into our landscaping to find new sources of survival food.
Even when there is no drought, living in deer country is one of the greatest challenges for gardeners because they jump fences so easily. In winter when food is scarce, deer can wreck havoc on trees and shrubs as they seek nutrition in cold and snow. Bucks also rub the velvet off their new antlers on trunks and branches, causing bark damage in other seasons, too.
The most vulnerable part of a tree or shrub is the cambium, a thin layer of vital water and nutrition carrying tissues that lies beneath the hard outer bark. Where the cambium is damaged, there is no more exchange between leaf and root in that part of a tree’s trunk. If the damage manages to ring the tree, all transfer is destroyed and it will die from that point upward. It’s not uncommon to “ring bark” trees in rural areas so they die while standing for easy availability of wood in the future.
To protect your investment in woody plants no matter where you live, the very best book on how to protect against deer, rodents and other wildlife is “Deer-Resistant Landscaping: Proven Advice and Strategies for Outwitting Deer and 20 Other Pesky Animals” by Neil Soderstrom (Rodale, 2008). Using photography and excellent diagrams, it’s a treasure trove of ways to protect woody plants from damage from specific animals. This book is a virtual bible for anyone who gardens outside the city.
Ruth Rogers Clausen’s 2011 Timber Press book, “50 Beautiful Deer-Resistant Plants,” offers gardeners a great way to landscape without concern for deer damage. This Westchester County author lives in the depths of northeastern woodlands, where deer are everywhere and many homes lack a fenced yard. In these landscapes the only way to protect against deer damage is to avoid what Ruth calls “deer candy” and replace them with well proven candidates from the book.
Gardeners in cold weather country know how important it is to protect trees and shrubs from gnawing winter pests. Now the drought-stricken states that formerly lacked a problem are discovering how rabbits, ground squirrels and others are consuming plants they’d never touch during normal rainfall years. In most places the rodents rarely consume bark of woody plants in California, but extended drought has reduced their forage plants considerably.
There are a variety of ways to protect tree and shrub trunks during any season. The simplest deer protection is to loosely wrap the trunk in burlap, which is open enough to allow air to move through but tough enough to discourage browsers. Tie it in place with twine and replace it every few months during the growing season to accommodate growth. For immediate protection where rabbits are a problem, create a chicken wire tube to place around the trunk and lowhanging branches.
When those who love wildlife find animals wandering through the yard, it’s a welcome experience. When they take out the plants, wildlife becomes the enemy. So do your best to protect those long-lived trees and shrubs so when the animals come to feed during lean days of drought or winter, plants survive and so do they.