Deer, small tree damage & Alberta spruce?

[Little Red Tractor]

I have deer problems as well. They seem to take periodic likings to my Fraser Fir Christmas trees. Not every year, but often enough to be costly. On my very small tree farm, one year I lost all the new growth on an entire patch of trees. Got some really ugly trees that will likely never be salable. Other years, I've had no problems with them at all. It seems to be dependent on what the other available foods are. Another local Christmas tree operation has had periodic problems with their Noble Fir trees, but not their balsams.

As for buck rubbing, they seem to like the small birches that grow elsewhere and one buck has been raising havoc on a honey locust in my back yard.

 

[Dr_Zinj]

I took about 15' of concrete 5"x5" wire mesh and rolled it into about a 5' diameter circle and set it around this spruce tree. I was going to drive the fence post in to hold it down but never got around to it.

I did this to 4 trees this spring and so far so good.

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I use 2x4 wire mesh on my trees, but only because I have beavers in the area in addition to Bambi.

 

[Mudfarmer]

Deer and elk will eat certain evergreens like candy. On our coastal tree farm in Washington State, I can plant Douglas fir seedlings with minimal loss to browse and scraping. Spruce don't seem to be bothered so your insecticide probably tastes salty. Cedar and related seedlings disappear overnight. To plant western red cedar, I grow seedlings in pots to knee high then transplant them inside wire cages - a circle of 2 X 4 inch wire mesh fencing four feet high (27 count to a 100-foot roll) supported by one metal t-post and an opposing wooden stake. As the cedar grows the fence gets raised up to control browsing. The fencing comes off at around 20 feet height and/or 3+ inches DBA (roughly ten years old) to be used over again. Initial cost is about $5 dollars per tree if I can find used t-posts. Ultimately cedar has the highest wood value in the surrounding area and its long life makes it an ideal carbon sequester tree. We have over a thousand in cages vs. about 10,000 free-living Douglas firs. We're experimenting with Sequoias and Redwoods (assisted migration) which will initially go into cages - don't know if the ungulates like those or not - maybe someone with California experience can let me know.

 

[Jaygyver]

The deer will walk by my house and eat the neighbors little garden. My wife has pots of vegetables fairly close to the house but we never were bothered, even the rose's and such. Dog has been gone for a while now but didn't help the neighbors when we both had them. We did build a 10x10 fenced in area for her real garden farther away from the house a year or two ago just to make sure. The neighbor up the road is in more of a wooded area and has a beautiful yard and full of different rose's and plants and he can barely keep them alive. He is a hunter and when I hear a gunshot I kinda think of him. We live out in the country so hearing gun shots isn't that rare.

My Father in-law gave us a small apple tree a few years ago so I planted it in the early spring in our driveway circle which I realized later is near the deer path but went untouched, until mid summer I walked out and something looked strange on the tree, sure enough one of them started to munch it. I also did what @bigtiller did and originally just set it on the ground and it did work great but it was in the "good" grass mowing area and we had to lift it out of the way to mow. So we put some cottage stone in a circle with bark dust and put some t-posts up and zip tied it near the top and left about a foot or two open at the bottom and has worked out great. Don't have to worry about mowing and the wife not debarking it with the weed whacker.

I guess I have an official velvet itching tree in the far field in the wet area as they just love it, all the way down past the bark on the one side. I do find a tree or two when I do a "walk about" that they will use sometimes I guess if they didn't want to wait in line.

 

[LXT]

best deer repellant ive found is vinegar, as an Arborist of 38 years this is what id suggest - most herbicide/pesticides attract deer for some reason, when we spray our utility right of ways the deer seem to always be very active in them right after treatment.