Yews

[Jameson]

Anyone planting Yews? I would imagine Canadian Yew is the variety suitable for wildlife. The deer have taken to nibbling on my Tauntaun(sp?) Spreading Yews planted in my landscaping this winter. Any experience to share?

 

[scott44]

At my grandparents house they have yews in their yard and the deer nail them pretty good all the time. I'm not sure what kind they are but I doubt I could get them to grow without gaging them almost like white cedars might be a good draw after a few years.

 

[Jameson]

:):)....so we do have too many deer for native shrubs.....:confused::oops:

sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[sandbur]

My white cedar are doing well with little browsing on the sandbox. Just like the beets and turnips and much of the corn that stands for two years.

 

[dipper]

Even with the low numbers around here, I did plant a bunch of white cedars last spring, but I don't have big hopes on them making it very long.

We have so few deer here in waupaca county wi cedar is regenerating itself, and your complaining about not being able to grow cedar? You poor mn guys, you can't win on anything. No wonder you are depressed all the time......

 

[West Branch]

ELH...I said native shrubs.. I've heard of areas where oaks, maples, pines, aspens, etc. cannot regenerate in WI and elsewhere, but have never had a problem with that on either place I owned or managed there.

For the record, prickly ash, box elder, and burdock are native.

dipshit...the reason cedar regenerates in many parts of WI is that there is so many of them. Deer can't eat 'em all. When you attempt to introduce them in an area where none exist, they are more likely to be targeted due to the "unique" factor.

In our area it is tough to grow white pine, red pine, and white cedar without deer browsing the heck out of them. There are 100s of acres of clover and alfalfa around and no problems with aspen, red osier dogwood, maple, or bur oak regenerating. With a couple of the white cedars plugs I planted last spring the netting was pulled off a month later and they were half way nipped off. One must have been found soon after planting because the soil plug was laying on the ground with a twig sticking out of it with the rest of the seedling eaten.

It would probably be a lot different if I put out 1,000 of them, but not what I want to spend my time doing when I can plant spruce.

 

[Jameson]

so....most folks don't have much to say about Yews, specifically. Cool, onward with the thread.

I recently got to check up on some white cedars that I had planted 7 years ago as bare roots. I was able to do some mowing around them the first 2 years, but other than that they have had zero care. Never been caged or anything. Now they look like nice little trees/shrubs about 6 feet tall. I am sure they are browsed, but not to death. Some were beaten up by the bucks using them as rubbing trees. These were planted along a deer trail, but the area (285) is managed for like 1-4 dpsm. I did get some pics, and will try to share some soon.

 

[West Branch]

West Branch, are there large, native stands of pine or cedar in your area?

Closest cedar swamps I know of are 6+ miles away, and some are pretty big. I asked my dad about it this past year and he doesn't ever remember any being closer and he did quite a bit of logging back in the 60s and 70s. Closest pines are a couple miles away as well.

Biggest factor for us in not having many conifers is the 1918 fire, everybody always talks about the Hinckley fire but the 1918 fire one was larger and more people killed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_Cloquet_Fire Anyways, it scorched our area shortly after all the white pine was logged in and soil was ok for farming so people kept a lot of the land cleared for quite a few years. Not the best farm land so a lot of people quit and some areas had red pines planted and other just grew into aspen, maple, etc. woods. Areas south and west that were burned but not as easy to farm so balsam fir, white spruce, and some pines were able to regenerate quicker. We still have black spruce swamps on our place, but on the few thousands acres around us their are almost no conifers on other than spruce swamp unless they were planted by someone.

When I looked at maps of the land survey from the 1800s in the Trees and Shrubs of MN book it looks like there would have been some white cedar pretty close by. White pines were supposedly abundant before logging and then the fire.

Somehow we ended up with a ton of bur oaks in our immediate area, a friends place ~5 miles to the NW only has a handful on 300 acres, and only a couple northern red oak as well. Its crazy what a person notices once they start paying attention.

 

[West Branch]

so....most folks don't have much to say about Yews, specifically. Cool, onward with the thread.

I recently got to check up on some white cedars that I had planted 7 years ago as bare roots. I was able to do some mowing around them the first 2 years, but other than that they have had zero care. Never been caged or anything. Now they look like nice little trees/shrubs about 6 feet tall. I am sure they are browsed, but not to death. Some were beaten up by the bucks using them as rubbing trees. These were planted along a deer trail, but the area (285) is managed for like 1-4 dpsm. I did get some pics, and will try to share some soon.

Sorry, that tends to happen quite a bit. I looked up the Canadian yew and it looks like it would be a good plant for deer and grouse. Have you seen non-landscaping yews for sale anywhere? This link says that it is intolerant of browsing. But it is very shade tolerant which would be a plus.
http://www.conifers.org/ta/Taxus_canadensis.php

 

[dipper]

ELH...I said native shrubs.. I've heard of areas where oaks, maples, pines, aspens, etc. cannot regenerate in WI and elsewhere, but have never had a problem with that on either place I owned or managed there.

For the record, prickly ash, box elder, and burdock are native.

dipshit...the reason cedar regenerates in many parts of WI is that there is so many of them. Deer can't eat 'em all. When you attempt to introduce them in an area where none exist, they are more likely to be targeted due to the "unique" factor.

Ya there must definetly be some type of depression with you guys, can't even take a little rubbing. Some of you guys are starting to turn into the lords of qdma forum. lighten up!

 

[Jameson]

Sorry, that tends to happen quite a bit. I looked up the Canadian yew and it looks like it would be a good plant for deer and grouse. Have you seen non-landscaping yews for sale anywhere? This link says that it is intolerant of browsing. But it is very shade tolerant which would be a plus.
http://www.conifers.org/ta/Taxus_canadensis.php

no apologies needed. Better to have a thread re-born than just be dead.

I have not seen non-landscaping Yews for sale before, but have never looked either. In the landscaping world there is also and upright Yew, more small tree like. I do believe I have seen some Canadian Yews growing in the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. It was a while ago, and I wasn't too interested in checking to see if they were browsed heavily at the time. The SNWR was known for a good deer population back then.

 

[sandbur]

the only place I have ever seen yews was on an area that was almost an island between two lakes. My general impression is that deer severely limited their growth or survival. (My Dad and Uncle severely limited the survival of deer on that island. They had the drive figured out.)

 

[sandbur]

:)
I pretty much drive my wife nuts when we're traveling around and all I do is think/talk about what's growing and why that may or may not be the case.

I asked about the native stands due to a history of anecdotal observations. Where large numbers of native desirable browse species exist and the seed bank is full of them (for example - white cedars in east central and NE WI), a guy can plant those same desirable species and get away with minimal or no protection. In areas where those same desirable native species are lacking (for whatever reason, fire, repeated tilling/pasturing of the soil, etc.)...a guy had better plan on protecting them.

Stu-I have always wanted to know why this type of tree grows here and not there. One example that comes to mind is the increasing pockets of what appears to be native stands of white pine as you travel north east from your place.

I also think that Indian tribes and fire management played big parts in what oru area looked like years back. Tribes came and left, the horse arrived.

West Branch spoke of the fire of 1918. I wonder if similar fires could have happened 100 or 500 years earlier-perhaps due to tribes or nature.

 

[wiscwhip]

 

[dipper]

Let's take this to the positve thread shall we. It is t appropriate here.

 

[Jameson]

The deer came in last night and chomped on the Yews a bit more, also wondered over to the Spirea for a bit. A couple of native plants that we don't read about on here too much that some might want to look into.