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

[H20fwler]

H2Ofwler, what state are you located, and what part of the state north to south? just wondering for comparison to freeze dates in the fall and dropping times. I've noticed that too, with apples the earlier we get really cold weather down near 0 to 10 degrees, the sooner the apples fall. especially if we get some nights down that cold followed by warmer weather in the 40s and 50s, and then back down around 0 to 10 degrees, and back up towards 40 to 50 degrees. that seems to make them drop earlier.

I’m in NW Ohio zone 6A
In years with fast temperature swings below freezing then quick thaws can make fruit apples and pears get mushy faster and weaken stems. Deer and everything else still eat them right up.
It seems for me pears more than apples also can over load branches with a heavy fruit set when tree is still young and snap branches. Pears are just a heavier fruit so thinning them some late spring early summer if they over produce will let them grow stronger.
I don’t mow my orchards and deer will bed right next to trees cleaning up pears as soon as they drop, it’s rare for me to ever see a pear on the ground.

 

[bornagain62511]

Does white cedar go through some kind of transition from being not so palatable early in the winter to becoming more palatable in the middle to late part of the winter? Just wondering because I was walking through the white cedars and dogwoods today and there isn't any browsing on the white cedar yet. Normally white cedar that are planted around roadsides, near the edge of small villages where deer inhabit, or the occasional yard planted white cedars in rural settings are decimated around here in the winter. As you can see in the photos I posted above, with the fence being up the last 12 years the white cedars have foliage all the way to the ground. I thought by now there would be lots of browsing on the white cedars but they still aren't touching them. It has been a mild winter with little to snow all winter until this past Wednesday when we got 4" of fluffy snow, which is practically nothing for Wisconsin deer. I'm sure by the end of January the browsing on the white cedar will be very noticeable but I find it very surprising that I can't even find any sign of browsing on them yet. One thing that is good is it tells me that there is plenty of food for the deer and the deer density is no where near excessive.

 

[BuckSutherland]

A few pics I snapped this weekend of some of the white cedar 1 gallons that I planted last spring. Looks like 10/10 survived and looking great. Deer are not bugging my cages at all and will likely be leaving my land for the winter soon.


Also a few pics of a spot where I am gonna be putting some white cedar on a south facing hillside that I want to turn into a thermal bedding. I have planted a couple white pines, a bunch of spruce and will add some cedar in a horseshoe to try and get them a thermal bedding from our NW, N and NE winds. I also have some swamp white oaks in tubes in there, plenty of browse, and a bunch more shit trees I can knock down all around it, and water is right next to it. Should be fantastic spot for them to bed and hang out eventually. Really lacks thermal cover right now. They will have great browse, vision and side cover from that spot someday. Lots of sun coming in there right now.