Posts Tagged white-tailed deer
We Are Not Alone — And We Like It That Way
Posted by piedmontgardener in Conservation Corner, Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening on December 28, 2021
A Great Blue Heron catching breakfast
Even though I heard them and often saw their tracks, I did not have a good idea about the numbers and diversity of native wildlife that regularly use the creek we live beside as a busy highway until we invested in some wildlife video cameras. In a typical Piedmont suburb, you may not see all of these species — although it is not impossible. But if you live beside or near water, especially a permanent stream, it is likely that you are sharing the area with a diverse array of native animals. [Note: You can click on any photo to view a larger image.]
Today I am sharing a few stills, in chronological order, taken from videos captured over the last two months. Personally, I never tire of watching my wildlife neighbors as they seek and catch food, argue over territory, or merely pass by on their way to somewhere else. The cameras capture Great Blue Herons fairly often. We’ve even captured some interesting moonlight interactions between them and beavers. I like the recent shot above of this majestic bird with voice croakier than most frogs catching a fish on a chilly morning in early November.
We hadn’t seen foxes since last spring until they began showing up again on the cameras in November. A daylight video of one slurping up creek water during the drought confirms we have gray foxes. Their gait is a subtle prance, and their tails are spectacular.
A Gray Fox prances past the camera
We usually catch bobcats in the spring and fall, but these solitary creatures were always alone — until the camera caught this pair. We hypothesize they may be litter-mates still hanging around together. You can’t see the temperature reading on this one; it was 35 degrees.
A rare sighting of two bobcats together
Recent forest destruction to make way for yet more suburbs has pushed more deer our way than in recent years, including at least five bucks of varying sizes. The young buck in this capture completely ignored the pair of raccoons across the creek.
We often see raccoons on the far side of this part of the creek. They walk along the edge of the water feeling with their front paws for tasty morsels.
Opossums are usually a blur on the video captures, putting to rest the notion that these critters are sluggish. However, this night was so warm that the opossum here was taking its time as it foraged beside the creek.
We are lucky to see and hear Pileated Woodpeckers often, thanks to the dead and dying trees in the beaver-built wetland across from us. However, we had never seen one of these crow-sized birds foraging on the ground until a camera captured this one in action.
This handsome fellow was tearing apart rotting logs beside the creek, searching for tasty insects within.
The cameras capture raccoons year-round. This recent shot shows a damp one that had just swum across the creek. We often catch them swimming, regardless of temperature. They seem to prefer to use the shortest route between points to get where they’re going, even if that means a dip in cold creek water.
Especially in spring and throughout fall and winter, coyotes patrol the creek nightly. We’ve never seen more than two at once on the cameras, but we hear more than that howling nearby, especially when it is cold.
A healthy-looking coyote on the prowl
These last two shots were taken within minutes of each other last week on a very cold night. All the creatures were active, probably because it was so cold and the moon was bright. Despite an array of predators, this camera often captures cottontail rabbits casually foraging out in the open. We don’t know if they are very lucky bunnies, or if there are just so many of them that all can’t be eaten. We were surprised by the brazenness of this bunny that is almost stepped on by a big buck.
Bold bunny
Given this final photo taken just minutes later, we think the bunny somehow knew that this buck was not the least bit interested in cottontails. Instead, he was defending his turf against another big buck, as evidenced by this antler-locked tussle caught on video. We expect to start finding discarded antlers soon, given the constant presence of the bucks this year.
They lock antlers, then try to push their opponent backwards. This encounter did not last long and seemed to end in a draw.
The forest around the creek I live beside is the only remaining high-quality wildlife corridor remaining on my road. All the native animals are being squeezed into this narrow corridor which leads to the Haw River nearby. My prayer for this new year is that somehow a way is found to persuade the long-time owners of the forest around this creek to put the land into a conservation easement. This would protect the land from the bulldozers forever. It would create a refuge for all the creatures in my area, and provide a safe way for them to travel to other bits of remaining forested land. If I were wealthy, I’d try to buy out the landowners myself. Alas, that’s not an option.
Barring a monetary miracle, all I can do is what I’ve been doing. I’ll keep adding native food and shelter plants to my side of this critical wildlife corridor in the hopes that the creatures can manage to survive despite their displacement by now nearly ubiquitous suburbs, all of which are erased of almost all native vegetation before humans move in.
Mostly Moonlit Wildlife Wanderings
Posted by piedmontgardener in Conservation Corner, Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening, Uncategorized on December 6, 2020
I recently took a great many photos of final fall highlights of my yard, and I hope to get them posted here soon. I’ve been distracted by the recent addition of two new wildlife cameras, which Wonder Spouse has strategically installed along the creek that borders our property. The quality of the videos captured by the new cameras is impressive, and the recent full moon seemed to stimulate nocturnal activity. I am hoping to create a PiedmontGardener YouTube channel soon, so that I can post some of the more interesting videos we are capturing. For now, here are a few stills I extracted from some of the videos captured just last week. I’ve left the time/temperature information in the photos, because I think they give each shot a bit more context.
Moonlit creek wading.
In the video from which I extracted the photo above, this buck slowly wades upstream. I love the way the water captures his reflection. I didn’t realize just how many deer are now wandering my area until I saw them in these videos. One night last week, eight does ran one after the other in a line away from the camera, their white tails flashing as they disappear deeper into the forest.
Not one, but two eight-point bucks.
We have seen one eight-point buck in the cameras many times, but we had no idea we have at least two bucks that size. And they wander the night together at least part of the time. These two hung out here for quite a while, sniffing the air, probably because this shallow piece of water is a favorite creek-crossing area for the does.
A black vulture surveys a favorite bathing spot.
A growing number of black vultures are spending a great deal of time along the creek, where they bathe in the shallows, then dry their great wings in the sun on the bare branches of still-standing trees killed by beaver-induced flooding. We now are capturing many daytime videos of these great birds bathing and arguing. It is fascinating to watch them wade into the shallow water, then dip their heads down into the water to push it up over their wings.
A vulture just dipping its head beneath the water as it ruffles its feathers to moisten them. Note its many friends loitering around the “pool.”
We have had a couple of rare early morning sitings of river otters that we suspected are now living somewhere along the growing beaver-built wetland adjacent to our property. Our new cameras have now captured them several times. We know there are at least three of them that hang around together, and we’ve seen the area they head into at dawn, where we assume they have a den. But this past week, a camera caught the three of them emerging from the creek to forage on our property. I couldn’t get a clear still shot of all three, but I did get these two as they returned to the creek. One is just entering the water and the other is looking over its shoulder for their companion still lingering on the floodplain out of sight here. You should be able to click on these photos to see larger versions.
River otters enjoying a moonlit foraging expedition.
This final extracted still shot surprised us. We had no idea that Great Blue Herons hunted in the moonlight, even when the temperatures are quite chilly. What an extraordinary delight!
A Great Blue Heron hunting by moonlight.
I love the magical moonlight reflections of these creatures with whom we share our land, and for whom we continue to try to stabilize and enrich their habitat — an increasing necessity as more and more nearby forest is replaced by monotonous suburbs devoid of native biological diversity.
A Week Beside Our Wetland
Posted by piedmontgardener in Native Wildlife on May 19, 2020
When Wonder Spouse and I moved to these five acres just over 31 years ago, about 1.5 acres were a floodplain. The area was dominated by a mature canopy of green ash trees; grasses and wildflowers grew beneath the trees. The creek that bordered our property was healthy, deeply incised, clear-flowing, full of crayfish, freshwater mussels, and fish. Intervals of years would pass without the creek overflowing onto the floodplain, which we mowed a few times during the growing season to minimize our chances of stepping on a snake. We planted native understory shrubs that should have been there: Spicebush, deciduous hollies, Virginia Sweetspire, Bladdernut, Beautyberry, Viburnum, and more. Growing in their ideal habitats, all flourished beneath the 70-foot ash forest.
A yearling saunters by at sunset.
Then the bulldozers came. Lots of bulldozers. The healthy second-growth forests that had surrounded us disappeared tract by tract as long-time landowners sold their family heritage to men eager to strip the land bare, replacing trees with subdivisions indistinguishable from each other. Silt deposits filled the creek — the consequences of sloppy construction techniques. Forests disappeared. Native wildlife that once had hundreds of acres to roam were squeezed into smaller and smaller patches of forest. One of the largest of those patches — probably the largest — is our land and the forest on the other side of the creek that, we hope, is too much of a wetland to attract the interest of the bulldozer clan.
Beavers that had lived a few miles from us along quieter streams were displaced by houses surrounded by fescue lawn deserts. They found refuge downstream from our land. A dam system longer than a football field has captured enough water to make a sizable, mostly shallow pond where Black Willows, sedges, and cattails dominate. The wetland raised the water level beneath our floodplain; its transformation to wetland is well underway. The ash trees doomed to death by the arrival of non-native, invasive Emerald Ash Borers will be replaced by rapidly expanding stands of Black Willow. Some of the shrubs we planted are hanging on; some couldn’t handle the rising water. Significant floods now happen somewhere between six and twelve times a year, depending on the hurricane season and cut-off low pressure systems like the one about to dump four or more inches of rain on us over the next two days.
A relatively minor winter flood event.
The floodplain is no longer flat. Multiple channels of flowing creek water now cover it. You must wear boots to wade across them if you want to walk to the end of the property. Massive silt deposits line the edges of the channels, sediment dropped by flood waters that lose speed as they leave the original creek channel. Topography and vegetation are nearly unrecognizable when compared to where we started three decades ago.
The dynamic nature of this area has been my great teacher. I have learned humility — no longer do I think I am the decider of what plant grows where. Nor do I know from one day to the next what plant or animal I might meet in this ever-growing wetland. The area definitely keeps me on my toes — safely dry within my muck boots, of course.
My strategy now is to plant as many well-adapted native plants as I can afford into this wetland area to increase species diversity and, I hope, to provide food and shelter for the ever-growing wildlife population sharing our land with us. We think our attempts are proving successful, if what we see captured on our wildlife cameras is any indication.
A hungry cottontail rabbit braves an area frequented by nocturnal-prowling predators.
We have two wildlife cameras strategically placed on our floodplain near the creek along an obvious wildlife path. The less expensive one we got first contains one camera that tries to take both day and night shots. Image quality is sub-optimal, which is why we invested in a more expensive model with two cameras — one for day shots, the other for nighttime photo captures. We download both cameras once a week to see what animals wandered by. Species numbers and diversity vary widely from week to week and month to month. Last week’s download produced a nice array of species, and included an action sequence of a fight between species. Another sequence prompted me to learn a new term — gang brood. Photos and explanations follow.
As you might guess, deer are frequently caught by the cameras, but they are definitely more active during some parts of the year. Bucks, for example, had not been seen much until this past week. My theory is they don’t like to show themselves until their new antlers make an appearance. Several showed up this week sporting velvet-covered antler nubs:
The does are extremely pregnant. We haven’t seen them on the cameras or in our yard much lately. We assume they are laying low while gestating. One of the does caught on the camera is very, very pregnant. I suspect she will — or may have by now — produced twin fawns.
And now for the fight. This is a first for our wildlife cameras — a tangle between a possum and a raccoon. These are nighttime shots and the animals were moving so there is motion-blur. The whole sequence occurred within one minute. We think perhaps the raccoon thought it might try possum for dinner, but the possum declined.
After the raccoon left, the possum lingered long enough to be sure the raccoon wasn’t returning, then disappeared into the tall grass — taking the opposite direction from that chosen by the raccoon:
The raccoon shows up in photos later in the week, but the possum does not. We suspect the possum simply decided to avoid the area.
The cameras caught four different bird species during daylight hours this week. The older camera caught a fuzzy shot of a black vulture. A group of them likes to hang around the creek and bathe in a shallow area. It’s not unusual to see crows caught occasionally by the cameras. They seem to be everywhere, perpetually curious. The camera catches shots of Red-shouldered Hawks fairly often. Wetlands are their habitat. This one was doing what we often see them doing — grabbing juicy earthworms from the fertile, wet floodplain soil.
Another bird species concludes this edition of Wetland Wildlife. Canada geese have been loudly present on the beaver pond since late winter. In past years, the pond was the nesting site of one pair of geese. As their goslings matured, the family would swim up the creek to an area near our backyard, then wander up the hill toward the greenhouse, nibbling vegetation as they strolled. We’ve been waiting for the cameras to capture this behavior, but were very surprised when last week’s footage revealed three adult Canada geese and goslings of two distinct ages, all hanging around together. That’s when I went online and learned about gang broods. Read about this behavior here in the section on behavior. It appears that some Canada geese parents band together with other parents and goslings, likely as a form of mutual protection from predators. This is just another example of what the growing wetland on our property is teaching us about the natural world.
In the Canada geese sequence that follows, you can see watchful parents scoping out the area before goslings appear. The final photo in this sequence was the last one of these birds on the camera. I am guessing that parents lost patience with offspring and rushed them off before the camera had another chance at a shot.
I predict that in the next few weeks the cameras will be capturing many photos of does with fawns frolicking around them. It also should soon be time for the wild turkeys to make an appearance. We’ve spotted the toms in an adjacent field by themselves. We know they separate from nesting hens to draw off predators. Last year after the chicks had grown a bit, a group of about a dozen hens, chicks, and toms were caught by the cameras on numerous occasions. Here’s hoping we get a repeat. Stay tuned…
Five Minutes of Magnificence
Posted by piedmontgardener in Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening on December 12, 2018
Sunrise color at 7:34 this morning.
The snow finally stopped falling last Monday afternoon – about 9 inches all told. This morning’s TV reporters chirped merrily about clear roads, and how all is returning to normal today. “But watch out for patches of black ice,” they cautioned.
A doe pauses near the creek at 7:37.
This is one of those times when I feel as if I live on a different planet. Our low temperature this morning bottomed out at 21 degrees Fahrenheit. Our long driveway remains buried in about 5 inches of snow, making walking to the garage an adventure. Snow has morphed into a solid block of ice; it will take Friday’s “warm” rains to eradicate it.
Clicking on the photo to enlarge it will reveal one doe in the water and another who has not yet begun crossing the creek.
But there are compensations for this icy inconvenience. Exhibit A: this morning’s sunrise. As if struggling against the cold, the sun only gradually warmed the sky, first painting it peach, then rose, and for a few brief seconds, deep red. Framed against a snow-covered landscape, the show was worth freezing on my back deck to snap photos as I listened to plaintive cries of yellow-bellied sapsuckers, rattling calls of kingfishers, melancholy songs of white-throated sparrows, and squeaky-toy chirps from brown-headed nuthatches high in the loblollies. Our overflowing creek chuckled softly — background to the bird bustle – then I spotted the does.
Looming behind the doe is the massive rootball of a tall sycamore felled by the floods of Hurricane Florence.
With obvious caution, they took their time placing each foot onto the cold-hardened snow, waiting for their weight to break through before moving the next foot. It was a slow trek across the ribbons of water criss-crossing the floodplain, now fire-painted by the rising sun. As each doe reached the edge of the creek, she paused, clearly reluctant to wade across a stream too wide to jump over. I could almost hear each one sigh as she delicately stepped into the rosy water, testing the creek bottom for solidity. Each left a ripple of fire water behind her as she waded in slow motion to the far side of the creek, then plodded on through the snowy wetland on the other side.
I am sure that local wildlife challenged by the snowy landscape would agree with me that life has not yet returned to “normal.” But while they perhaps didn’t appreciate it, I know I feel blessed to have witnessed this morning’s five minutes of magnificence.
By 7:39, sunrise color faded as the last ripples created by the doe’s crossing dissipated.
Deer Don’t Negotiate
Posted by piedmontgardener in Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening on November 17, 2015
As soon as bow-hunting season began a few weeks ago, I noticed that I was startling lounging deer from various overgrown spots in my landscape. I’d be walking along when, suddenly, a deer I hadn’t noticed no more than a few feet from me would jump up and bound away.
I saw almost no evidence of deer from summer through early fall. We had so much rain this year that all the native vegetation remained greenly lush throughout the growing season. I suspect most of my local deer opted to remain in the floodplain forest on the other side of my creek, rather than dine on my landscape.
A devoured variegated hydrangea
Over the years, Wonder Spouse and I have used deer fencing to protect areas we consider to be likely deer targets. Our vegetable garden is well protected, and so is about an acre on the north side, where native magnolias, azaleas, viburnums, and other beauties flourish unmolested.
A closer look at a damaged variegated hydrangea
Adding deer fencing changed the trails deer used to traverse — and dine upon — our property, so much so that beds with vulnerable plants in my front garden are largely ignored, as long as I spray them with deer repellant once early in the growing season when new shoots prove too tempting for the hoofed marauders to ignore.
Oakleaf hydrangea damage
When I noticed that deer were spending most of their time in my yard, I meant to go out and spray my vulnerable plants. But Life’s complications distracted me, and I convinced myself that it wasn’t a priority. After all, the deer had ignored my beauties all summer. Why would they eat them now, when their leaves were fading toward winter anyway? Who was I kidding? Deer don’t negotiate, and they don’t reason. Their focus is survival. So they used my yard as a hideout from hunters, and dined on whatever was handy.
A mangled oakleaf hydrangea branch
When I returned home at an unusual hour a day or two ago, one was sleeping in my front garden — not five feet from my front door, and right next to my beautiful oakleaf hydrangeas. I didn’t have time to spray the shrubs then, and they paid the price.
They slept, dined, and excreted almost at my front door!
Abundant rains this fall kept my variegated hydrangeas that grow near the oakleafs especially lush. The deer ate nearly every leaf on both bushes, leaving petiole stubs adorning the sides of branches. The deer were a bit more covert with the oakleaf hydrangeas, which they nibbled enthusiastically on the side farthest from my house, where I’d be less likely to see them, and where they could make quick getaways if startled.
Evergreen azalea branches are always nibbled.
After I cussed a blue streak upon seeing my denuded variegated hydrangeas, I walked around the front garden more carefully, looking at plants I know to be favored by the deer clan. Of course, the few evergreen azaleas in my landscape had been nibbled. They are deer candy, and I haven’t planted any for over two decades.
Daylilies are also a favorite food group
Most falls in my garden are very dry, so the daylilies retreat into the earth for another season. But the abundant rains this fall caused all the daylilies to push out fresh green growth — growth I hadn’t noticed, but the hoofed ones did.
Nibbled evergreen Kousa dogwood branches
When I saw the mangled variegated hydrangeas, I knew the truce I thought I had negotiated with my neighborhood deer was a delusion of my overactive imagination. I then undertook a careful survey of my yard to see what else had fallen victim to the voracious appetites of deer.
- The oakleaf hydrangeas were mostly eaten on one side. Enough leaves still remain for the late autumn color show they are famous for.
- Evergreen azaleas have been nibbled, but not devoured.
- Daylilies were nibbled, but they will live to sprout another day.
- The evergreen Kousa dogwood was another popular hangout while Wonder Spouse and I were away. We startled a deer sleeping beneath this tree early one evening. Some years in late winter if I’m not paying attention, the deer will eat every leaf of this tree they can reach. It is unusual for them to start nibbling on it this early.
If the deer had stopped here, I might not have even mentioned this latest intrusion. But when I was inspecting my evergreen Kousa dogwood, I realized that the beautiful little Magnolia stellata ‘Royal Star’ that was thriving near it had been almost completely annihilated. That’s when I really got mad.
It had a lovely rounded shape and was full of flower buds.
This is buck damage. They remove the fuzz off their antlers by obsessively rubbing them against branches of a certain diameter and orientation. Apparently, my once-beautiful little ornamental magnolia was ideally configured for them. Ripped branches littered the ground, clearly uneaten. The bark of the central leader branch was shredded completely.
The bucks rub their antlers all the way around, removing the bark and ensuring that the branch dies.
This tree is an offshoot that rooted from my original Royal Star magnolia — a 25-foot tall specimen nestled beneath tall loblolly pines. Out of curiosity, I inspected it after I saw what they did to the baby. A few lower branches had in fact been pulled off in a way that resembled the damage to the little tree. But the big one is so fully branched and large, I think the buck abusing it got frustrated and moved on.
Just a few branches of the mother Royal Star magnolia were mangled.
After I finished cussing, I got out the deer repellant I keep in our garage. I’ve had best success with Liquid Fence. I sprayed it on anything that had been eaten or that I thought might be eaten. Then I sprayed it on a few plants that hadn’t been eaten but that I thought might serve as a stinky territorial message to the hoofed marauders: KEEP OFF! I even sprayed it on their little piles of excrement, hoping that by covering over their scent with the stink of the repellent they would be repelled.
That was yesterday. Today I walked the yard again seeking evidence of further damage and/or fresh deer tracks. I found neither. If you get close to the oakleaf hydrangeas, you can still smell the stink of the repellant. I think I coated every remaining leaf. Whatever it takes. I want that beautiful deep garnet late autumn leaf color!
Deer don’t negotiate, but they will take the path of least resistance. Now, while their haunts on the other side of the creek are still green thanks to autumn rains, they can find food. They must watch for hunters, but they can eat. For now, the lure of fresh green food untainted by repellant sprays will keep them mostly on the other side of the creek.
But when late winter ices over the stream and turns every leaf brown and tasteless, they’ll be back. And I’ll be waiting, ready to protect any green lovely rash enough to brave the chill for an early start on spring. Deer don’t negotiate, so I won’t either.
Fall broccoli thrives safely within our deer fence-enclosed vegetable garden.
Bambi versus My Garden
Posted by piedmontgardener in Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening on January 10, 2015
I know, they are cute, especially the speckled fawns as they frolic on my floodplain while their mothers graze nearby. But we all know how much of a challenge gardening in the southeastern piedmont region has become as our deer population has grown exponentially. When I find a treasured young tree with its bark shredded and branches broken beyond repair because a buck used it to rub the fuzz off his antlers, I admit that I am moved to contemplate Bambi-cide. Instead, I’ve spent the last quarter century devising gardening work-arounds for my five acres of green chaos. This is what I have learned.
There is no such thing as a deer-proof plant, except for almost all non-native invasive exotic species. I’ve never seen evidence of deer grazing on privet, autumn olive, porcelain berry vine, Japanese honeysuckle, or Japanese Stiltgrass. The only exception to this rule in my yard is English ivy. During very harsh winters, deer nibble off every green leaf on the vines crawling across the ground in my backyard. Eradicating this ivy is on my infinite gardening to-do list, but standard strategies won’t work, because an expanding stand of native Bloodroot occupies the same areas. Thus, I am delighted to have the deer slowing down the progress of the invasive English ivy, which was already here when we moved in.
If I don’t protect a tree/shrub/perennial/vegetable I care about, sooner or later one or more deer will devour it. The only logic I’ve discerned is that when native food supplies are low, my local deer much more aggressively explore my plantings for dinner options. Deer will take a few bites out of any plant, just to see if it tastes good, or if they are very hungry. Every early spring before native trees and shrubs have leafed out much, one or more deer eat about a fourth of an expanding area of Mayapples. This native wildflower is so poisonous that Native Cherokees called it the Suicide Plant. I’ve never found any unexplainably dead deer lying nearby, so I assume they eat until they get stomach aches, then move on elsewhere.
Fresh tracks usually mean trouble.
Fertilized plants are preferentially eaten by deer. I suspect they can smell the extra nutrients. Or maybe when they’re randomly sampling plants, they find the fertilized ones taste better. A few years back, a California-based development company erased 1000 acres of beautiful forest very near my house. They replaced it with suburbs full of over-fertilized grass lawns and ornamental trees and shrubs. When the forest was destroyed, many of the deer that lived there moved to my land. For about two years, I routinely saw a dozen deer a day, and they ate everything. But now that the houses are up and the fertilized landscapes are in place, those deer have returned to that area to dine upon the unprotected fertilized goodies growing there. The only plants I fertilize in my yard are the ones growing in my vegetable garden, and the annual flowers I grow in the bed along my front walk. How do I protect these? Read on.
Almost certainly evidence of more than one deer.
Deer-repellant sprays will deter deer predation, but you must re-apply the spray after hard rains, and you must thoroughly cover all parts of the plant. On my Oakleaf Hydrangeas in early summer when the leaves are fresh and tasty, if I miss a leaf when I spray the plants, the deer will find and eat that one. I find that I don’t have to spray all the time except during really heavy deer population years. Usually, if I spray during early to mid spring, the deer go elsewhere and find other things to eat through the summer. They usually return and start nibbling in middle to late fall, which is when I spray my hydrangeas again to ensure we get to enjoy their spectacular autumn leaf color.
The noxious, but nontoxic sprays used for deer repellent also deter other plant nibblers. Cottontail rabbits won’t touch sprayed plants; neither will groundhogs. One year during a severe summer drought, deer were devouring my beautiful weeping cherry tree. The leaves of this tree turn a spectacular orange-gold in early fall, but the deer were about to make sure the tree displayed no fall leaf color at all. I thoroughly sprayed this small tree anywhere I thought the deer could reach, which was most of the tree at that time. Immediately, I noticed that another problem pest of that tree – Japanese beetles – disappeared. Evidently, they didn’t like the taste of the sprayed leaves either. I now routinely spray this tree in late spring to remind the deer to leave it alone. During big Japanese beetle plague years, I spray the tree again to deter these invasive exotic pests. Japanese beetles love grape vines too. If you’re trying to grow your own grapes and you have trouble with these pests, try spraying the foliage with one of these repellant sprays.
The repellant sprays only smell bad until they dry. But you want to be very careful about how you spray. From personal experience, I encourage you to avoid windy days, especially when the wind is erratic. I also always wear gloves that I don’t mind getting rid of afterwards. Somehow, the bottles always manage to leak a bit onto my hands. If you are more adept, perhaps you can ignore this advice. You’ll find recipes for making such sprays from scratch. This is messy, stinky work, and because I only spray a few plants a few times a year, I don’t mind investing in the commercial products.
For larger landscapes and especially valued plants (think vegetable garden), barriers are the only effective defense I’ve found. For many years, this meant surrounding all new woody plants with wire cages. This was not only ugly, but invariably the plants grew beyond the confines of the cages before I could provide a larger cage. Deer nibbled the protruding branches, growth of the overall plant was inhibited, and noxious invasive species, such as Japanese honeysuckle and Japanese stiltgrass used the cages for their own evil purposes. Finally, we invested in deer fencing. I wish we had done it sooner.
A deer fence gate on my north slope garden.
Deer fencing comes in several forms. We paid a professional landscaping company to install 7-foot-tall plastic deer fencing around about an acre on the north side of our yard where I had planted most of my most treasured woodies – deciduous azaleas, deciduous magnolias, choice viburnums, Stewartias, etc. Freed from their wire cage prisons, all of the plants doubled in size in two years. I think their root systems had been growing, but their top growth had been inhibited by the cages. Once freed, they exploded. I felt like a fool for not figuring this out sooner. The company that installed our fencing built us several sturdy gates for easy access to my beauties, and for the first year, they repaired any holes that developed for free. Every winter, they offer discounts on repairs. Most of the damage to our fence – and there hasn’t been all that much – has resulted from falling branches from the large canopy trees within the enclosure. Only once did a deer try to jump the fence, which resulted in some tearing. The installation of the fence changed the regular paths the deer used to cross that part of the yard. Now that we’ve forced them to detour around the large enclosed acre, they only visit certain parts of my yard when they are very hungry and thus willing to go out of their way to seek food.
Base of north-slope deer fence gate. Note how the bottom is less than an inch above the ground.
We had the same company enclose the vegetable garden in plastic-coated chicken wire fencing of the same height used in the other area. On our fence-enclosed north slope, squirrels immediately chewed holes in the plastic fencing along the bottom. We repair the holes, but the squirrels make more. We didn’t want this issue in the vegetable garden, knowing that the rabbits would happily use the squirrel-created entries for their own purposes. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that on early summer days when my spring lettuces and carrots are productive and juicy, I often spot a rabbit sitting at the garden gate, wiggling its nose wistfully at what it cannot reach. The plastic-coated chicken wire was definitely worth the higher cost for this area.
Deer fence gate to vegetable garden.
Certain ornamental plants are just not worth growing in my yard, because I know that deer/rabbits/groundhogs will eat them faster than I can protect them. I’ll give you a list of those plants as well as a list of plants my deer don’t seem to favor in another post soon. This one is already too long.
Close-up of base of vegetable garden gate. Note how the wire extends past the metal poles to touch the ground and also across the gap between poles, thereby deterring hungry rabbits.
Have you devised other strategies that work for your garden? If so, please share these in the comment section of this post. They outnumber us, so we gardeners must stick together to thwart them!
Zero point three degrees Fahrenheit
Posted by piedmontgardener in Greenhouse growing, Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening on January 30, 2014
First light this morning.
That was the temperature on our hill this morning just as the sun began to reveal our icy landscape. We were fortunate this time; the electricity remained on. Thanks to the valiant chugging of the small heater in our modest greenhouse, the temperature never dropped below 35 degrees — colder than optimal to be sure, but not freezing. I doubt any plants inside were harmed any worse than they were when the power did go out earlier this winter, dropping the greenhouse temperature to 18.
Wonder Spouse took the pictures you see here from inside our house, not wishing to discover what zero degrees might do to his camera. Before he took these shots, he went outside to check on things. His movements startled a doe and her twin yearlings. We had just seen them yesterday in the early afternoon, boldly walking up to the back fence, nibbling on my Virginia Sweetspire. When a yearling started devouring my one large Hearts-A-Bursting, I got mad and pounded on the window, causing them to bound across the snowy floodplain and out of sight.
We only got an inch and a half of snow Tuesday night, not even enough to cover all the imperfections in our landscape. But it never got above freezing yesterday, so the arctic air had its way with us this morning. It’s been so cold for so long that my creek is fully topped by ice more than an inch thick in most places. As the sun rises in the morning, its light makes the icy creek sparkle almost too brightly for my eyes to comfortably admire.
The rhododendron in the back yard has never looked quite this sad before.
When Wonder Spouse startled the doe and her yearlings this morning, I watched them bound across the floodplain. But when the mother deer got to the edge of the creek, she halted abruptly, her young nearly bumping into her as they skidded to a stop, almost cartoon-worthy.
I watched Mama Deer step delicately onto the ice-covered creek while her yearlings watched. She got all four legs onto the ice without it breaking; I was surprised. When she took another careful step, the ice couldn’t handle her weight. She seemed to have been expecting this to happen, because she barely reacted as the ice beneath her other three legs gave way and plunged her into what had to be very cold water. As soon as she had regained her balance on the creek bottom, she bounded out of the water to the other side, then turned back to encourage her offspring to join her.
The first yearling managed to perfectly aim for the hole in the ice that Mama had created, bounding in and out of the water lightning fast. The second one didn’t aim as well. It hit the edge of the icy hole with its front legs, slid with a splash into the hole, scrambled around to get its feet on the creek bottom, then bounded out, soaking wet. I’ve never seen fur coats as thick and rough-looking as the ones on these three deer, so I’m hoping Yearling #2 managed to stay warm enough to survive.
To be sure, this has been a winter to test the endurance of all of us. The weather seers are promising a “significant change in the weather pattern.” Theoretically, the western US will now get the cold and precipitation, while the South returns to “normal.” For the sake of all my southern brethren, I sincerely hope the forecasters are correct.
As the sun climbed higher, the icy creek sparkled.
Personally, I am more than ready for Spring’s arrival. I have a feeling I am not alone in this sentiment. Stay warm, everyone!
Piedmont Gardener 