Treacodactyl
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Keeping deer off a new hedgeHopefully I'll be planting a few 100m of hedging this winter and I need to keep the abundant deer off the plants while they establish.
Tree guards seem to be commonly used but I intend to plant a wide hedge and can see the guards being very expensive.
The other option is fencing off small blocks, say three lots of 30m and planting in the block. I think this would be cheaper and quicker to do and also could be moved after a few years to protect another area.
Any comments or other ideas? AFAIK there's mainly roe and no rabbits.
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tahir
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The downside is that if you get one point of ingress then they're able to munch the whole lot.
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Treacodactyl
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There's plenty of other stuff for them to munch and I plan to most plant blackthorn that's already growing in the area (don't tell rob  ) so they would be free. I also intend to add a few other trees for diversity so they could be protected by tree shelters as well.
Are there any particular tree shelters you'd recommend?
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tahir
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I'd go for spiral guards with bamboo, deer will knock over stake and guard on anything they want to nibble really badly. We have to restake at least 10 (orchard) trees a year where they've been knocked over by deer, that's apart from the ones they've nibbled to death, and these are only muntjac.
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vegplot
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Plant one BB for every 200 metres of hedging (or the nearest whole round number).
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tahir
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| tahir wrote: | | I'd go for spiral guards with bamboo, deer will knock over stake and guard on anything they want to nibble really badly. We have to restake at least 10 (orchard) trees a year where they've been knocked over by deer, that's apart from the ones they've nibbled to death, and these are only muntjac. |
Actually, they don't seem to affect the hedge so much, that's mostly people damage 
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Treacodactyl
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Deer will hopefully be controlled but there's no way you can do that all the time to prevent damage. I need to have a good look at the current hedges to see how much damage the blackthorn currently suffers as it doesn't seem to be a favourite of the deer.
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tahir
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I would be amazed if they graze established blackthorn if there's other stuff about.
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Treacodactyl
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Its the smaller seedlings/suckers that I'll check. There's plenty about that I intend to move so I'll give them a good examination to see if they've been nibbled much.
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Gervase
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I think blackthorn's pretty well stockproof - most animals seem to be very wary of the thorns.
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