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Deer oh Dear !
Renata Boyle
Posts: 74
We planted a rowan tree in the hope (wishful thinking) that maybe one day we could attract waxwings to our ever growing population of wildlife, my husband noticed that his rowan tree was showing signs of ever increasing damage and we couldn't figure out why (he blamed our cats!!) until one morning he woke up to say an enormous male deer rubbing his antlers up and down the tree.
It is delightful watching mum, dad and the babies prancing up and down our garden but our poor rowan is suffering - is there anything we can do to help repair the damage done prevent further damage to the trunk and branches?
Would covering the affected parts with something help?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, picture below
Many thanks, Renata
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It's the time of year when the 'velvet' covering the new antlers becomes very itchy and the stags need to rub them to get the velvet off, and how wonderful to watch it happening in your own garden. However, it's not doing your rowan any good.
As Logan says, some sort of fence - barricade will do the trick. It needn't be permanent - just from now until the end of July should be enough - but you may have to do it again each year.
Good luck
Any chance of some photos of the deer?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
thank you so much for your replies - have a feeling I will eventually get banned from this site for asking TOO many questions, came to gardening later in life and often struggle with some of the gardening book that often assume you know a lot already .... not sure how many photo's it will me post here of the deer but will try, the first one is one of the 'babies', he/she let me walk right up to her with the camera ...
this is 'dad' who took a liking to the rowan ...
and lastly, 'mum' ...
They're lovely to look at Renata but they cause an awful lot of damage as you've discovered.
A sturdy barricade for the tree is the only solution unless you want to put deer fencing round the whole garden - you may have to do that anyway as they'll wreck lots of planting now that they've found their way in.
They taste good though....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Can't ask too many questions Renata, it's what the forum is here for - it would cease to exist without questions, and that would be so sad.
P.S. And it's nice to have some easy ones too
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
lol Fairygirl ... yeah think we will have to protect that one tree, garden is enormous so can't really fence the whole perimmiter, funnily enough so far they havent touched my raised beds (yet) or my borders (fingers crossed) but they have eaten all my nieghbours sunflowers and his newly planted trees .... we also have badgers, gazillions of birds ... and now the wild ducks have found our pond (we have counted 51 in one go, including manadarin ducks!)
We even have had moles (eek) think they are still there as I keep spotting their tell-tale hills but so far not in the middle of the lawn but at the end of the day we are delighted that so many critters feel that this is their garden as well as ours.
Good luck with it Renata. I think most people feel that rabbits are the most common creatures that do the most damage in gardens and 'aren't deer cute', but they're not remotely cute when they wreck everything you've worked hard to create.
and as for badgers....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
In the highlands I've seen chicken wire loosely wrapped round trees to protect them when young. The deer can rub against the chicken wire as needed and tthe tree appears ok, but you need to make sure there is no sticking out bits. Maybe try the beechgrove garden website. Lovely pics
We get lots of deer damage here, but my list of what they won't eat is growing every season
feel free to PM me if you want the list....
on your bark damage, I have found that cutting a bin bag into thin strips and winding it round the damaged area like a bandage works - every year I take it off and renew with one slightly smaller .... Gives the tree a chance to gradually repair itself.
we make temporary chicken wire barriers each time we plant a new tree or shrub. Once they've been in a few years they then seem tough enough to cope with bambi's attention
I LOVE this chat forum, you are all so friendly & helpful, I hope you are patient too because I have a gazillion photo's to post and questions to ask, honestly I do look up things in books too but find them really technical .... do they do a 'gardening for dummies' book?
I will try the thin strips of bin liner round the worst part Chicky and thanks for the info about the chicken wire Cathy xxx