types of bedding trees?

Peplin Creek

5 year old buck +
So I have pretty closely maxed out the food plot potential of our 80 acres which has led me to start thinking about other habitat improvements. Aside from hinge cutting, I want to add more defined bedding areas within typical bedding areas if that makes sense. The truth is I know pretty much nothing about trees other than what I search for on the web. I want to describe a couple of areas on my property and than I am please asking for people’s opinions on desired trees plants.

1.) I have talked about some of the poplar/aspen growth on my property already and plan to cut out pockets with in them for new growth. What I would like to do is plant a set of trees inside or around these pockets to encourage bedding and provide security. I am just not sure what exactly is best to put in.

2.) this location is creek bottom that gets a lot of sun. It’s current state is tag alders and grass that’s about waist to head high. but there is about a 5 acre section that is mostly just the grass and really too open for deer to constiently travel through from what I can tell. Soil is more moist in this area naturally because it’s low but not standing water or muddy. This is an area where I think if did this right and I could create a better bedding area and also a set of trees that connect one side of the property to the other acrossed this open area. Creating a soft funnel so to speak, it could be a really fantastic setup.

3). These last areas I am thinking about is a tree that grows in a somewhat dense canopy, if it even exsists. We have 2 areas. One being a hardwoods stand the other would be under mature giant pine trees. There is decent morning sun under the pines. Mostly dogwood and small oak trees grew back. It’s great in the summer time. I am thinking about smaller pine planting’s within it to encourage a place to bed/travel once the leafs are down in the fall. The hardwoods is pretty typical of what you would expect. Some shrubbery but you can pretty much see 80 yards in each direction. The goal there would be to thicken up areas to encourage movement in certain areas while leaving the majority of it alone.
 
What type of grass is it? If it is reed canary grass I would get rid of it. RCG is very dense, spreads by rhizomes, and will choke out everything, also a very poor bedding grass. Does not stand up to snow and will fold over and cover any plantings.

I would replace with switch grass which grows in clumps and is an excellent bedding grass. It will do well in moist soils. See thread below for info ...
http://www.habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/switch-grass-in-2018.7239/#post-138328

Establishing aspen has always been difficult for me. The seedlings get over browsed by deer. They also need a lot of sunlight and the tall grass will choke them out. You would need to clear the ground and protect with tree tubes.

The best bedding trees that will create screening and thermal cover that you could add would be conifers. For your moist soil you could consider balsam fir, fraser fir, white spruce, & norway spruce. Start with 1/2 acre blocks, about 15-20 trees, and plant these in alternating rows with the trees that are spaced 12' a part. You can do random groups but try to space 12' a part as this allows trees to keep their lower limbs full as they grow.

I am focusing on the same approach on my property with a combination of conifers and switch grass. You could use the aspen/poplars in rows to create travel lanes between the conifer clumps.
 
If area two is reed canary, I would suggest the following. Mow it in the spring. Let it green up and spray with roundup. Spray two or three more times. The following spring lay down black plastic ( I am in dairy country and used recycled plastic from silage bags). Then put willow cuttings through the black plastic. Cut a few bigger openings in the plastic and plant a few spruce. I would leave the plastic in place until the willows are waist high or better. Maybe run two strips of willows with a trace lane between them.


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I have seen areas of reed canary that was repeatedly disked during a dry year and parts of it came back with a nice willow stand. Other areas return to RC.


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I've got a lot of switch grass and I have been planting small clumps of 6-8 white pines along the edge for bedding...trees aren't big enough to see if it is working yet but deer do like to bed in the switch. Biggest buck I saw this year was bedded in switch at the base of an apple tree this fall, jumped up ten yards from me.
 
1) Add a few cedars for thermal and plums/hazelnuts/cranberry/elderberry shrubs to provide some mast/browse and thicken it up a bit.
2) Redosier dogwood and willows - maybe a maple or two for a future stand?
3) Maybe Hemlock (would need to be protected), gray dogwood, arrowwood viburnum
 
I don't have a lot of white pines on my land but everyone of them has deer beds under them in the winter. I think they like that it keeps the snow of them and the needles make a soft warm bed. I have found a couple sheds under these. I have also noticed that they deer really seem to like to bed in my scotch pines too, even thou its right along the road. This spot has 4ft tall grass all around the pines and I think the grass and pines make the perfect bedding area. Your area #2 seems like it would be a great spot for pockets of pines along with the grass you have there.Area #3 I would look into balsams. They thrived under my thick canopy of shade.
 
1. Conifers. Balsam fir & white/Norway spruce as already suggested.
2. Dogwood, willow, etc plus conifers - whatever is best in wet soil.
3. Just hinge it to get more light in and see what naturally fills in.

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I planted 3K 2 year seedlings 2 year transplants (2S+2T nursery designation) white pines 22 years ago. I used 6'x6' spacing for my rows. For the first few years I mowed between the rows until they got too big for the tractor to safely navigate between rows. I put them in several slightly sloping hillside areas that are adjacent to some of my food plots, specifically RR soy beans and/or RR corn. The deer use them on a regular basis for bedding, especially in the winter due to the proximity of the food plots. I have no intentions of thinning these areas. They were planted to give the deer a bedding area and will remain for that purpose.
I had 95%+ survival rate and the deer did not browse them when they were planted together in an area. Some white pines that I planted here and there did get browsed in their early life.
 
I planted 3K 2 year seedlings 2 year transplants (2S+2T nursery designation) white pines 22 years ago. I used 6'x6' spacing for my rows. For the first few years I mowed between the rows until they got too big for the tractor to safely navigate between rows. I put them in several slightly sloping hillside areas that are adjacent to some of my food plots, specifically RR soy beans and/or RR corn. The deer use them on a regular basis for bedding, especially in the winter due to the proximity of the food plots. I have no intentions of thinning these areas. They were planted to give the deer a bedding area and will remain for that purpose.
I had 95%+ survival rate and the deer did not browse them when they were planted together in an area. Some white pines that I planted here and there did get browsed in their early life.

Are you not concerned that as the trees grow they will start to lose their lower limbs?
 
Deer use white pines here to bed under - if - they keep their lowest limbs and those limbs sag to the ground. They almost act like an umbrella and keep snow off the ground (and the deer), but it takes years to get to that stage. Those types of pines are usually not crowded - they have ample sun and no close competition from other pines. We've also had good success with Norway and white spruce for bedding here. They block the wind, and if not planted too close together, they have great "dead air" spaces between them that the deer love to lay in. If those spaces have grass of some sort or weeds/goldenrod, I think you'll have deer bedding in there. That set-up has worked real well for my camp - keeps deer on our property. Good luck with your area.

EDIT: Another tree that works really well around Pa. is Washington hawthorn. If you can establish a thicket of those, deer will find them to bed in. Some of the best and most reliable deer bedding areas I've run into are hawthorn thickets. It may be just because people don't venture in those hawthorns once they get to be 6 ft. tall and higher because the thorns will tear you up. Thus a sanctuary of sorts. They get thick and will drop berries that will become more seedlings for free. Hawthorns like lots of sun, so they may or may not work in some of your areas. Tough trees that tolerate a lot of conditions.
 
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I have not seen any of the white pines start to lose their lower limbs in 22 years. It COULD happen some time in the future. Will I be alive or still own the property at that point in time? Stay tuned.
I am happy with my choice of white pines. My land has sandy soil. Pines seem to do the best in my area. The spacing of the trees is the critical factor in my mind.
 
I took a walk back to the creek bottom where I want to plant some trees, it seems very uneven ground. Not sure how that will work out. Starting to think maybe just plant RD dogwood in spots might be the way to to go down there. Provide some browse for them if it gets to talk, take the chainsaw and nock it back down.
 
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