what to plant, more white cedar, apple, or dogwood ?

bornagain62511

5 year old buck +
We have about 8 acres we planted with white cedar and lots of red osier and silky dogwood, and some apple trees. Deer browse white cedar like crazy during the winter around here. Because we were determined to get a large area of awesome winter habitat with white cedar, we built a 8 strand, electrified 12.5 gauge hi tensile wire fence around this area 12 years ago and left it up to keep the deer out until the white cedar were big enough to survive deer browsing. This is the first winter since we took the fence down, so the deer will likely browse all the foliage up to 6 feet hi by the end of winter. There are some areas withing this 8 acre planting where there aren't many white cedar but mostly just weeds and dogwood. Would you suggest I plant more white cedar or apple trees in those areas, or would it be better to just let those areas be more open and allow the dogwoods to reach their full size intead of getting shaded out by planting more white cedar or apple trees? Of course, I would have to individually fence each white cedar or apple tree now that the electric fence is down, but I would not be opposed to doing that for a couple hundred white cedar or apple trees if I decide to plant more in this area. I have hundreds of other apple trees elsewhere too. We also have many thousands of white spruce nearby and around the farm as you can see in some of these photos. The one photo is taken from a distance and you can see the area I'm talking about with some areas less heavily planted with the white cedars, that's where it's mostly dogwood and/or apple trees. This is south facing too, so it will make for excellent winter habitat.



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This is an air photo from about 5 years ago, so the white cedars have grown a lot and starting to fill in more than you see here. the area outlined is the white cedar/dogwood/apple tree planting. South facing, nearly 8 acres total. the west and south side of the planting is switchgrass. the more mature evergreens are white spruce.


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Here's a larger view of the area. The fairly open area to the south of the narrow strip of white spruce is a field about 6 acres in size with hundreds of apple trees. The open fields in the middle are either food plots or switchgrass.

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I don’t have any help with your questions, but the first thing that came to my mind was wow, it’s like candy land for deer!

I have planted white cedar, in my yard, thinking they wouldn’t mess with it, I was wrong! They almost made it a year. If you can plant more then the deer will eat, I envy you, I wish I had the room to.
 
I don’t have any help with your questions, but the first thing that came to my mind was wow, it’s like candy land for deer!

I have planted white cedar, in my yard, thinking they wouldn’t mess with it, I was wrong! They almost made it a year. If you can plant more then the deer will eat, I envy you, I wish I had the room to.
yeah, that's why I was so determined. My Dad and brothers and I planted several thousand white cedar on this 8 acares 2 different times and every single one of them was devoured quickly. Then my Dad said, "you should build a electric fence around that area and replant...." at first I thought that would be an impossible undertaking, but the more I thought about it and studied fence making, I decided to do it. I spent nearly every free moment that summer working on the fence, setting the posts, etc. At the end my Dad and brothers helped string the 12.5 gauge his tensile wire which was a major help and something I never could have done alone. The first couple of years it was a challenge to keep all the deer out but eventually they had got shocked enough and every deer in the area steered clear of the 8 acre electric fence enclosure. Taking the wire down went surprisingly easier than we anticipated.
 
Here's some of the hundreds (actually probably well over 1000) of apple trees I started planting and T budding 20 years ago. Galarina and northwest greening are holding lots of apples now.



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Where are you located at, what zone?

If you are zone 4, would be nice to learn more about your apples over time in a zone similar to mine.

Would also like to learn more about your fencing for white cedar. I have planted about 20 of them and caged them individually. Slow growers.

What type of deer density do you have?
 
Wisconsin driftless area. Deer density was much higher 10 to 20 years ago. now, probably about 50 per square mile. Fence was 8 strand 12.5 gauge hi tensile. spacing between the ground and the 6 bottom wires was about 8 inches. top 2 spaces about 12" between wires. top wire about 6 feet hi. on the uphill side of the fence (northern side) I had to string masonry line at 7' and 8 feet to keep them from jumping the electric since they had a downhill approach to it. Fence was kept very HOT . mediocre voltage will not keep deer out consistently especially on larger parcels in hi traffic areas, such as this 8 acres is located.
 
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Cant wait for the Apple Deities to comment on "cedar" and "apple" mentioned in the same title....

bill
 
Cant wait for the Apple Deities to comment on "cedar" and "apple" mentioned in the same title....

bill

"white cedars"are actually in the cypress family and won't harbor rust fungus.
 
We have red cedar all over the place around here. There are actually quite a few red cedar that grew naturally from seed within the fence enclosure which is fine because deer love to browse red cedar around here too and they provide great cover. There is many places around this part of Wisconsin where apple trees will not be exposed to apple cedar rust from nearby red cedars. The varieties of apple trees I've grafted to my rootstock are immune or highly resistant to apple scab and apple cedar rust. My favorites are liberty, galarina, northwest greening, enterprise, snowsweet, williams pride (August ripening). Northwest Greening and Galarina are the best late hanging varieties. Enterprise, Winecrisp, Snowsweet, tend to hold apples well into winter too. Sometimes liberty will hold them into December. and January, although most of the LIberty fall from the tree in September/October, LIberty is the easiest growing, most productive year after year, disease resistant, fastest growing and earliest ftuit bearing variety I have tried. Enterprise puts on a ton of vegetative growth and might be even faster growing overall than LIberty, but they don't produce quite as early or as consistently year to year. Liberty often have bumper crops year after year.
 
I’d plant a variety of shrubs and obviously cage them off. Deer love variety. Congrats on your work so far. You have done a great job and we all know the time, $ and work it takes. Job well done.
 
I'd plant a few Washington hawthorn trees in the more open areas. They love sun, and produce loads of 3/8" dia. red berries that grouse LOVE!! We have a patch or two planted at our camp, and deer like to bed in them. Safety in the sharp thorns?? They seed themselves in readily, so you'll get numbers of free seedlings to transplant elsewhere, or let them to thicken an area. Very tough trees, and virtually pest-free for us here. They don't like shade - need sun to produce berries in good numbers. Great nesting cover for insect-eating birds too.

I'd also plant some good crab apple trees in the sunny locations. Crabs are less fuss & headache than regular apple trees, and usually produce crops every year. Also tough trees when it comes to survival. Our crabs don't get near the insect damage that regular apples get here.

I like all the spruce you have for winter wind-blocking / shelter cover. Your pics could be many places here in Pa. Very similar terrain to much of Pa. Your property looks like a deer HAVEN!!!

FWIW.
 
I wish we had another 5 or 10 acres of open ground to fence in. I'd plant another mix of trees and shrubs. If any of you have a large area of open ground that you plan to plant in trees and shrubs, I'd highly recommend fencing it in for 10 years or so to get things established. It's way easier than fencing individual trees and shrubs and far less headache overall. Another recommendation if you do anything like this, to mow the grass/weeds between them if you can. The first few years after planting and putting the fence up I kind of ignored the white cedars and I never did any weed control and rabbits actually killed a lot of young white cedars by chewing on the trunks. That and the drought of 2012 killed a lot of white cedar which is why we have the more open areas, but that led me to start planting 1000s of dogwoods in the enclosure and more apple trees. So it worked out to create a nice mixture
 
I really enjoy these photos of young white cedars. You just dont see any like that where I hunt in N MN. I have found one little patch along the road otherwise they are snacks. I am hoping by the end of 2022 that I have 51 of them caged on my land, up from 1 in 2020.



I like the idea of some burr oak gamble, apples and other shrubs in there. In a few years they might not ever leave that spot. And I would really think planting that white cedar area really increased the value of your property.
 
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