Deer Wars

Well maybe not full scale wars, but I need to find an acceptable balance where some new plants are allowed to survive to maturity.  The first battle was in creating a vegetable garden.  There using a double fence, two 4-5' tall fences about 4' apart, has been pretty effective at keeping the deer out.  Next was controlling deer browse on shrubs and new trees.  In those cases I have been having some success with repellent sprays, like Bobbex, and using wire cages around susceptible plants.  Plant selection is also important, by avoiding deer favorites like arborvitae and roses, I save a lot of heartbreak.

This pussy willow (Salix discolor) has survived repeated
deer 'rubs'.  The cambium layer has healed but left
the original heartwood exposed.  The short trunk guards
are not tall enough to protect all of the trunk
 susceptible to deer rubbing.

The next phase of the battle to wage is rutting season when the bucks look for the perfect tree or shrub to rub their antlers against to clear them of velvet, the outer layer that supports the growth of their antlers.  Here in the Mid-Atlantic rutting season begins around the end of October and runs for 1-2 months  The ideal targets for velvet removal are flexible saplings, 1-2" in diameter and over 2' tall.  Small evergreens seem to be a particular favorite.  This is bad news for the few Christmas trees that I am trying to grow.  I’ve lost a number of nicely shaped trees once they reach about 3 feet in height.  Trees with lots of stiff branches low down on the trunk are not as desirable.

I have a stiff 4' tall welded wire cage around this young sassafrass. 
This guards against deer browse but an aggressive buck
may be able to tear it loose.

I have been protecting the newly planted evergreens with chicken wire, which is good for a couple of years.  Once the trees get taller I had the bucks tear away the chicken wire.  Another problem with chicken wire cages is that they interfere with the shape of the tree. 

This year I tried a new technique that I heard about a number of years ago.  Lay chain-link fencing horizontally on the ground around the trees you want to protect.  The idea is that this creates an uneven surface on the ground that the deer find uncomfortable to walk on.  To be effective the fencing needs to be held a little bit above the ground level to create an unstable surface, particularly for hooved animals. It's kind of like a cattle guard. I was not able to get hold of any scraps of chain link, but it did salvage some 5 foot tall welded wire fencing to test this concept out.  The nice thing about the welded wire is that it is stiff enough that it can be held above the ground surface with fewer supports than chain link. 

The pink flags mark the corners of the horizontal fence.

I cut 6 foot long sections of the fence and cut a slit half way though in the middle to accommodate the tree trunk.  I turned the edges down so that once put on the ground the fencing would not lie flat, but would arch up a little.  The last week of October I laid out these horizontal fences around several small Christmas trees, a pussy willow (that had been damaged in the past) and a sweet bay magnolia (about 1.5” in diameter)

Here is a deer just skirting along the edge of the horizontal fence,
keeping a couple of feet away from the tree trunk.
It could probably lean in to munch on the branches if it needed to.

Results were mixed at best.  I didn't lose any Christmas trees (either with or without protection), but it did get some damage to other young trees despite having both the horizontal fence and a chicken wire cage.  Where it wasn't effective it may not have been raised enough off the ground or it may need a wider protection zone.  Another reason may be that it is just not very effective.  Advantages (if done right) are that it has a low low impact on appearance of the landscape (can't be seen from a distance) and it does not interfere with form of the tree or shrub.

This Douglas fir is getting some attention from a buck.  The tree is surrounded
by chicken wire but does not have the horizontal fencing.  This particular tree
has multiple trunks so it may not be a choice candidate for antler rubbing.

This 4" drain pipe was cut in a spiral using a hacksaw.
Note the ventilation holes.

I was very sad that the deer attacked my magnolia.  It had finally gotten tall enough that the leaves were out of reach of the browsing deer.  For single-trunked trees some sort of bark protection may be the best route.  You can buy these like the spiral wound tape, plastic mesh, tubes.  Also chicken wire, hardware cloth or welded wire fencing can be wrapped around the trunk.  Alternatively you can make them from flexible drainage pipe.  One concern with this black pipe is heat build-up in the pipe during the winter.  To reduce this I drilled ¾” holes every 6 inches to let in air.  It would be better to use white-colored piping (does that even exist?).   You need to be careful not to damage the bark when putting rigid tubing around a tree.  Another feature of the  plastic pipe is that it makes the trunk appear larger than the 1-2" diameter that the bucks prefer.

 Bugs can also hide out under the protective pipe or wraps.  So you need to watch out for that.  This year I put truck protectors on too late, after the damage was done.  But I went ahead and put them on anyway, just in case a buck came back to finish the job.  For the spring and summer I will remove the tubes so that the trunk can heal and develop naturally.  I will just need to remember to put them back on in early fall.  

Here's my sweetbay magnolia with the  protective tube in place. 
The arrow indicates how high up the deer damage went
 before the tube was put on.  The antler rubbing happened despite having
 both the horizontal fence and a 3' tall chicken wire cage.

I also tried wrapping some plastic mesh fencing around some trees.  This was easier to do but I’m not sure if it will offer as much protection as a solid tube (better than nothing?)

This plastic fencing was very easy to put around the tree. 
Heat build up is not an issue, but I'm not sure how much
 protection it will really offer.

So, in review, for single-trunked trees a trunk wrap or protector of some sort should do the job.  For trees and shrubs with low branches, a perimeter cage, well anchored to the ground, should do the job.  The horizontal fencing as described here still needs some fine tuning but holds some promise since it does not interfere with the growth of the plant and it has a low visual impact.

It looked like a mild winter until...

We've been having a pretty mild winter this year.  The average temperature in the U.S. in February 2017 was 7.3 F above the 20th century average.  Comparing photos I'd taken in 2014 and 2015 with this year indicates that this year we are 2-4 weeks ahead, based on the blooming of the crocus and forsythia.  On March 14th we finally got a good dose of snow in our neck of the woods (west-central Maryland).

This late snow is out of place with the forsythia that has been blooming since late-February this year.

About a week before the snow storm I took a walk around the woods to see what was starting to come up.  The first thing I checked on was the spicebush.  It usually begins blooming shortly after the forsythia.  This year, while the forsythia had been in bloom for a couple of weeks, the spicebush was just getting started.

March 10th and the flower buds on the spicebush were just opening.

The next plant I checked was the pussy willow, Salix discolor.  This native tree/shrub is one of the earliest blooming native plants and is an important source of pollen to early season native bees.  Since this species is dioecious, only the male plants are sources of pollen; however both male and female flowers have nectar.

The buds of this pussy willow are just opening.  When fully in
bloom the flower buds of this male plant will be covered
with yellow pollen-bearing anthers.

Looking down on the ground in the leaf litter I found a number of Virginia bluebells, Mertensia virginica, that had just come up.  Sometimes the new leaves have a purple tinge to them, but that color quickly fades to green.  The spikes of flower buds follow quickly after this first flush of leaves.

These Virginia bluebells have just come up.

Also showing up on the ground was white avens, Geum canadense, which is pretty common in this area.  While its not particularly beautiful in bloom, it does fill in gaps in the shady understory and its wispy white flowers break up the sea of green leaves.  In the early spring it is by the light colored veins on the deeply divided leaves.

The leaf markings on this white avens rival those of some Heucheras;
however, as it matures the dominant leaves will be smaller and the veination less noticeable.

The plant to the left in this photo is purple deadnettle, Lamium purpureum.  This introduced species is scattered throughout the shady areas.  While weedy, it does not appear to be causing too much trouble with the other plants.

These violets look a little like garlic mustard, ...

Also noted among the fallen leaves were fresh leaves of some native violets, probably woolly blue violet, V. sororia.  These nearly round leaves have finely serrated margins (crenate) and fairly smooth leaves.

They can be distinguished from the over-wintering garlic mustard rosettes that have longer, slender petiole and leaves that are deeply veined and more deeply toothed serrate leaf margins.

Garlic mustard has deeply veined leaves that
look tired, having been out all winter.

Garlic mustard is not the only invasive species that is evident right now.  In fact late winter is a good time to spot some invasive species since they tend to come to life a little before most of the native species.  Multiflora rose and barberry are both leafing out now making them stand out in the woods.  Since the soil was soft I was able to pull a number of these bad guys out of the ground.  This is also a good time to spot Japanese honeysuckle growing up in the trees.  Now is a good time to  cut these climbing vines and deny the roots an early burst of energy.

Most native honeysuckles have the two terminal leaves fused together
like this just below the flower bud.

While not growing with the same vigor as the Japanese honelysuckle at this time, the native coral or trumpet honeysuckle is also leafing out. Flower buds are beginning to form, though the normal bloom season is closer to mid-spring.

Finding a mate for my Plants, part 2

One of my goals in creating a more wildlife friendly landscape is to use plants that produce fruits and berries in addition to pollen, nectar and habitat.  While for some plants that is not a big deal.  A single specimen may be self fertile, or there are other nearby plants for cross-pollination.  Where I have been having more trouble is with some of the less common species to my neighborhood.

A good number of fruit bearing trees and shrubs are dioecious, that is, they have male and female flowers on separate plants.  You need one of each in order for the female to bear fruit.  The classic example of this in horticulture is with the hollies (Ilex sp.).  Fortunately, the industry knows that customers expect to see red berries on their winterberry hollies, so they have provided distinctly named male cultivars to interplant with the more attractive females.  Usually one male plant is sufficient to fertilize five females.

Finding information on the genders of other plant species is more challenging.  Many maples are dioecious, but it is rare to find its gender in the plant description.  Most folks don't care much about the flowers on a maple, they are too far away to see and the foliage is the main feature anyway.  However gender is an issue for many allergy suffers.  Male trees produce loads of pollen and if it's wind borne, that's a lot of pollen in the air.

This Sassafras was blooming at the beginning of April.
Males have showier flowers because of all of the stamen.
The female flowers are more subdued.

My goal is to have mating pairs so that I can get fruit production for the birds and other wildlife.  On my property I have a number single specimens.  In order to find out which genders I have, I need to be out there observing them while in bloom.  I learned that my big sassafras tree is a male since I was out there in early spring while it was blooming.  I didn't see any others in bloom.  I recently purchased a new seed grown sassafras, but it will be maybe 10 years before I learn its gender.

One approach to getting mates when buying young plants is just to buy a lot of them and then play the odds.  I often buy 3 at a time, but 5 gives you a better shot. This is only certain for seed-grown plants.  Plants propagated from cuttings will have the gender of the 'parent' plant.  Then you need to hope that the propagator started from a mix of plants and not a single cultivar.

This fringe tree is probably 4 years old and
has a few blooms on it.

Another approach is to be at the nursery and find plants in bloom.  I got lucky this year when I found small fringe trees in bloom at my favorite nursery.  I went home and saw that both of mine were also in bloom and they were both females.  I headed back to the nursery and looked though their plants until I found a male and bought it.  Now I'm all set for next year.

This is the female flower, there are two stigma held closely in the center.

The male flowers have two paddle-shaped anthers that protrude from the flower center.

Tupelo, Nyssa sylvatica, is another tree that is dioecious.  I put in two of them in a couple of years ago.  Then I realized it was a big gamble that I would have one of each, so a added a third this year.  These mature into fairly large trees, so I don't want to fill up the yard with a bunch of them.

I have a mature persimmon tree that is female.  The first year we moved here I added 5 more saplings.  Now, 4 seasons later they are about 10 feet tall, but still no sign of blooming.  Maybe next year.

Here's the female persimmon in bloom.  I haven's seen what the male looks like, yet.
CORRECTION: This is actually a male plant.  See comment 6-14-2020 below.

The native pussy willow (Salix discolor) also comes as separate male and female plants.  The male is showier with its large fuzzy stamen.  These plants do bloom when they are small, so you might have luck determining which to buy at the nursery.  These bloom in mid-April around here and, unfortunately, many nurseries aren't open for business then.  The one I purchased two years ago was male.  Willows are very easy to propagate by cuttings.  So I was able to quickly grow several new plants, but these will all be male.  I did pick up another this spring, but it was not in bloom.  The vendor said it was seed grown so I'm working blind.

The male flower of this pussy willow is adorned with bright yellow stamen.
The flowers on female plants are green and somewhat scaly in appearance.

I did get a couple of goatsbeard (Aruncus diocus) which turned out to be both male.  This is a case where I am happy not to have a mate.  The male has the showier flower and two plants take up more than enough to space in the garden.

The stamen on these male goatsbeard flowers really catch the light.

Native Plant Wish List for 2014

With a new planting season approaching I am planning on continuing my crusade to replace  the invasive species with native, mostly indigenous, plants.  I have another round of brush clearing to do this winter, especially the removal of some Autumn Olive tree/shrubs.  I am also looking to reduce the number of Butterfly bushes and Forsythia on the property and replace them with higher value native shrubs. 

Over Christmas I took the time to finish reading Designing Gardens with Flora of the American East, by Carolyn Summers.   The chapter on 'showy substitutes for invasive plants' was very inspirational in making up my plant list for this season.  This book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in designing native plant gardens.  There is sound reasoning behind each of the recommendations in this book.  I found this to be  much more useful than just a list of what should or should not be done when designing a garden or landscape.   To enhance the wildlife value of our property I am trying to  use a combination of plants that have something in bloom throughout the season for the pollinators as well as berries and fruits for the birds and small mammals.

Anyway, here's a list of my target plants for 2014:

Pussy Willow, Salix discolor.  I was surprised that this is a native species.  I is used so commonly in early spring decor that I figured it had to be imported.  The catkins swell in very early spring, first as white, silky buds, then opening to reveal either yellow (male) or greenish (female) flowers.  Pussy Willows are dioecous, male and female flowers are borne on separate plants.  My plan is to use the pussy willows as replacements for Forsythia.  The color intensity will be much less, but the wildlife value will be so much higher with the willow.  For all its flowers, I have seen very few bees visiting a forsythia in bloom.    Pussy Willows like full to part sun and prefer moist soils but will tolerate some dryness.  They are larval hosts for Viceroy and Mourning Cloak butterflies and they tolerate deer.  

I'm not sure of the exact species.  This photo is from the end of March in Boston.

I took this photo of a shrubby willow at the Arnold Arboretum about 5 years ago.  I did not record the name at the time.  As I was trying to find out more info about it, I went to the arboretum's web site and found that they have actually made an Internet accessible map of their plantings.  Using that map and my memory of where I took the photo, the willow in question is either the native Bebb's Willow, S. bebbiana, or an introduced Black Willow, S. gracilistyla 'Melanostachys'.  Based on the light color of the catkins, I guess that it's the former.

Another substitute for Forsythia is Spicebush, Lindera benzoin.  Its flowers impart a yellow haze to the forest understory about the same time as the Forsythia are in bloom.   It grows better in shadier situations than either Pussy Willow or Forsythia. 

For a partly shady area I would like to try replacing the Forsythia with Red Osier Dogwood, Cornus sericea.  This plant is in bloom from mid-late May and follows up with nutritious berries in mid-late summer.   Besides the flowers and fruits this dogwood also has purplish fall foliage and red-colored stems in winter, features definitely lacking in the one-trick pony, Forsythia.  Species plants can get large (6-10') but there are compact cultivars like 'Isanti' and 'Arctic Fire'.  A big problem with dogwood is that deer find most of the plant pretty tasty, but I have seen large plantings doing well along the roadsides.  This dogwood serves as the larval host for the Spring Azure butterfly.

This 'Isanti' cultivar is in full bloom at the end of May and should grow to about 6 feet.
Cutting back the older growth each year will keep the size down
and give more new red stems in the winter.

As far as replacing the Butterfly Bushes, Buddleia davidii, a multi-shrub approach may be needed.  Butterfly Bush has a long period of bloom and is very attractive to pollinators.  But it's like candy.  The plant does not act as a host for any native insects.  Thus, as it displaces native species, it excludes useful host plants, and degrades the habitat value of the garden.
 

The seed heads of Sumac make them easy to spot.  Not sure which species this is.
The stems of R. glabra are smooth, while those of R. typhina are hairy.

For the early part of the summer I am looking to Smooth Sumac, Rhus glabra.  This is also a common roadside plant, but not so common in the nursery trade.  It's chartreuse panicles do not stand out to humans, but they do to butterflies.  What is most noticeable in this shrub is the scarlet fall foliage and the deep red berries through the fall and winter.  It grows to about 15 feet, similar to many of the mature butterfly bushes around here. The larvae of the Hairstreak butterfly use Sumac as host plants.

For  the second part of the season I will put in some American Elder, Sambucas nigra ssp. canadensis (often S. canadensis).  American Elder likes medium to moist soils and part to full sunshine.  I have seen this growing in roadside ditches covered  with white umbels in the middle of summer.  Dark, palatable berries follow in early fall.   This shrub does not have a neat compact form, but neither do most forms of Butterfly Bush.  I am somewhat concerned about deer browsing on the young plants, so some protection will be needed. 

This native Spiraea blooms throughout the summer
and is a magnet for bees.

Other shrubs that provide mid and late summer flowers which  I put in last year include dense St. John's Wort, Hypericum densiflorum, and Meadowsweet, Spiraea alba var. latifolia (this one blooms all summer long).

In the areas where I have cut down the Autumn Olive, Elaeagnus umbellata, I am looking for native plants to provide lots of mid-summer  flowers, a large crop of fruits, and fairly dense branching to provide cover for birds.  Cockspur Hawthorn, Crataegus crus-galli, looks to be a good fit.  It blooms through mid-June and has lots of berries from late summer into winter.  It has dense horizontal branching and long thorn that provide a lot of protection for birds.  (For use closer to people there is a naturally thornless variety, var. inermis.) 

I would also consider Chokecherry, Prunus virginiana, while blooming earlier, it is faster growing and has fewer disease problems.  Chokecherry lacks the thorns of Hawthorn, but can form a thicket-like colony.  Looking in Douglas Tallamy's book Bringing Nature Home,  the cherries are near the top of the list as far as their ability to support butterfly species.  Hawthorns come in 12th, both way ahead of an invasive species like Elaeagnus. 

'Blue Muffin' is noted for it's sapphire berries,
as long as there is another Arrowwood around for pollination.

The other shrub that I will be putting in place of the olives is Arrowwood Viburnum, Viburnum dentatum.   These bloom in late May through mid-June and produce dark blue berries from late summer through autumn.  As I have mentioned before in this blog, Viburnums are self-sterile, so you need to have more than one genetic individual of each species to get berries.  Fortunately a local nursery is offering seed grown, wild-type plants so I won't have to worry about self incompatibility.  Wild-type Viburnums can get too large for many landscaping situations.  There are a number of more compact cultivars for garden use, such as the 'Blue Muffin' (aka 'Christom') shown here.  Together the Viburnums and the Hawthorn or Chokecherry will provide a nice edge habitat for with both food and shelter for wildlife.