Tiny Trees need PROTECTION

I planted 9 little trees in our front yard this spring–during our two weeks of absolutely terrible projects in March. They are doing fine, except that the deer keep eating all their leaves. Some are faring better than others–but my sourwood and red maple are both getting hit hard.

So, I first tried to put up some garden stakes and bird netting, but it didn’t work well, at all. Generally speaking, the ground in our yard is REALLY rocky, but especially so in this part of the yard and I couldn’t get the stakes far enough in the ground to really work.

So, I had to go to plan b, which was to use a heavier plastic mesh and rebar to keep the deer away.

This is 3/8″ x 48″ rebar because the netting recommends a 4′ post. I decided to put 3 pieces of rebar around each tree, which meant I had to pound 27 pieces of rebar into really rocky ground. In some cases, I had to try 3 or 4 or 5 places for a piece of rebar before I could actually get it in the ground. It was super humid, so I was drenched with sweat by the time I finished.

Before I put the netting up, I fertilized all of the trees with organic all purpose fertilizer.

I zip tied the leading edge to a piece of the rebar to secure it before I tried to go around all the pieces of rebar. Then I secured it with more zip ties and then cut the netting to length.

I was able to finish 6 trees, but then I had to stop because I ran out of netting. I finished the following morning after I bought more netting.

The trees that I planted are 4 hazelnuts and 3 persimmons in this area and then a red maple and sourwood to screen my neighbor’s garage which is literally on the property line. Next year, I’d like to plant an American beech and a dogwood and some pear trees. I’m trying to use more natives in our yard.

Anyway, I sure hope that this work because it was absolutely terrible to do.