Habitat out loud

[SD51555]

I think a 5 foot fence would work fine, but you might end up with a little browsing on the edges when the deer stand up on their hind legs to reach some ROD. There's so much browse available on your place that I really don't think it will be a huge issue.

I also think you could get away with no fencing at all if you made 3 sided brushpiles in the winter and then just added the 4th side after planting the ROD in the spring. You might have some rabbit or mouse damage since they like to live in brushpiles, but I think it would be worth a shot at no cost to you other than time.

I think I'm getting to that point where I may be ahead of whatever deer are there. I ventured into my 2021 cut to look for tiny dogwood, and what was in there was all 4-7' tall already. When I cut that in 2021, there was no dogwood over 16" and what little there was, was kept browsed. What is really fun and frustrating at the same time is, it takes 2-3 years to really see if what you did 2-3 years ago is getting me ahead of the game. I never realized how much the dogwood came roaring back until I went looking for small stuff to yank. 2 years ago, I could walk all over and pull single stems that were 12-16" tall.

Judging by how the dogwood is booming back to prominence, it seems things are going the right way. Deer largely do not browse tag alder sprouts, but they do browse some. They hammer diamond willow sprouts pretty hard when they're close to a trail too. Throw in ash stump sprouts, and the deer can't keep up with all the browse that's coming. One of these years, I'm going to have to go back to the beginning and cut again, but not until those areas start losing their ground cover value.

 

[Foggy47]

SD....you've got competition on those raised beds.