RE: Purchasing trees
 

I strogly suggest you protect your apple trees well. My friend and I started planting apple trees about five years ago. His are gone and mine are still doing well after protecting them. Put two fence posts on either dside and surround with wire fencing. Mainly the top. For the bottom use finer wire mesh to keep the mice and rabbits of the base of the tree.

RE: Purchasing trees
 

I would try Gurney seedhttp://gurneys.com/index.asp?eid=gu1
I don't know about cheap with them but they have a lot of varieties.

RE: Purchasing trees
 

LISTEN TO BUCKMINE!!!

We planted several about 10 years ago. Three survived. The deer tore them up.

Two years ago, we planted another 20 trees. As of now, we still have 19 alive. These are caged...top and bottom.

RE: Purchasing trees
 

We took a beating the first couple of years from the deer , but the fencing has helped a lot since then .

RE: Purchasing trees
 

Those guys are right on the money about covering trees. My buddy planted 20 apple trees and did'nt cover them and the deer had a expensive snack on him. Another thing I did was to paint the bottom few feet with white paint. It's suppose to keep the trees from splitting in the winter due to the freezing and sun. I also wrap the bottom to keep mice and other critters from griddling them.
Good luck......marty

RE: Purchasing trees
 

Marty 56; if you mix Thiram with the white latex paint it helps prevent south west injury as well as keeping any chewing animal away.

To keep the deer away I still believe in hanging soap, or from other posts spraying soap solution or egg solution.

Dan O.

RE: Purchasing trees
 

Hey Dan O, do you just drill a hole in the soap and put a string or twine thru to hang it? I've seen your post before but can't re-
member how you did it. What kind of soap? I'm planting 100 poplar in early Spring, just put in about 60 blue spruce. The 2 apple trees I have are enclosed in 2by4by6 welded wire, that's expensive. <img src=icon_smile_clown.gif border=0 align=middle>

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RE: Purchasing trees
 

Lawnfarmer; use the smelliest deodorant soap you can find (Dial, Irish Spring, etc.). I cut the bars into 2 pieces, drill a hole through them and just hang them from a branch with twine. Natty Bumpo had a posting in this section where people said they had good luck spraying soap solution and spraying eggs mixed with water. I have never had deer chew on a tree after I hung soap on it and the soap lasts for about a year. But; if the sprays work, they would be easier to apply.

Lawnfarmer; there was a posting for persimmon trees and apple trees for about a dollar each. Those are great prices to make your property a deer haven.

PS Blue spruce are supposed to be one of the trees that deer won't touch.

Dan O.

Edited by - dan o. on 02/15/2002 20:12:14

RE: Purchasing trees
 

I have been watching with great interest the extreme efforts a friend has made to repel deer. Nothing worked. She tried them all. Her problem is so severe that the deer climb ten steps onto the porch and attack her hanging baskets.
This spring she was in K-Mart and spotted an inexpensive form of the blue Tidy Bowl gizmo that you hang in the toilet tank at about $.50 apiece. Desperate to solve her deer problem she bought a few and hung them in places she wished to protect. Deer damage stopped.

Feeling brave she then planted a row of begonias along the front of the house and placed several of these blue toilet sanitizers just under the pine straw mulch. No deer damage to date after two months. Other nearby gardeners are now trialing her discovery with reported good results.

My wife just gave me this to post, I think I'll go with the Dan O. soup though. Thanks terry


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RE: Purchasing trees
 

Lawnfarmer; try them both and let everyone know what works best for you.

Dan O.