I had pondered using the title, "Off with his head!" How dare anyone speak ill of the effort to restore ROD?
In all seriousness, he's got a good point on how hard it is to get ROD going and keep it from getting browsed away. I've got no actual beef with Winke, but I thought it'd be a decent thread to bat around while it's winter. I've had similar challenges getting ROD going, and have since learned how to beat the deer without a ton of time, or hauling a ton of garbage (cages and posts) into the woods. So, here are my top tips to re-establish ROD if you're struggling with it. #1 and 3 have produced the largest impact on the entire property.
1.
Increase total browse - Find your barometer browse. Mine was ash stump sprouts and basswood stump sprouts. When those started getting browsed less, and even not at all, I realized I was getting ahead of the deer. Once you're ahead of them, they won't have to search as much for something to eat, and less looking means there will be spots they don't eat.
2. If you're planting ROD,
keep it away from deer trails. If deer trails don't matter, make them matter. Get enough brush and timber on the ground that the deer need trails. If it's a park, they can go wherever they want and eat everything, or just leave altogether.
3.
Make big surface area brush piles. Especially if you have big timber species that have no standing up habitat value (basswood, aspen, poplar, dead conifers, tag alder, diamond willow, cottonwood, box elder, ash), get them on the ground and make a big area the deer will not want to climb into. Dead balsam fir is a great exclusion material. The branches seem to stay on the dead trunk forever and hold up the whole log. I learned this one by accident. I made a decent sized snag of ash logs and brush, and ROD popped up inside it on it's own. That was 5 years ago, and the snag is still intact and the dogwood is already bigger than the deer can eat.
4. If you want to protect some strategically placed dogwoods,
plant a shitload in one hole. I've had nothing but great results from putting 20-50 plants (not cuttings) in one large hole. ROD wants to root graft together, so you can take a bunch of individual stems that may only be 16" tall, and transform that into a giant legacy looking bush in 3-4 years.
5.
Go find heavily browsed ROD that already exists and put a fence around it. I know that's counterintuitive from what I just said about not hauling in garbage, but those that are already there and growing have the benefit of more roots than top, and can be grown way faster than introduced bushes. Plan to invest in some portable fencing, meaning you'll rehab that bush and move the fence 3-4 years later once that bush is too big for the deer to eat it to the ground. Look for the ones browsed back to 12" and there are lots of stems together. They'll be back to 5' in one year, and in another few, they'll be coarse enough, they can't get reduced to 12" again.
6. Find your existing ROD that isn't browsed, and
put the sunlight to it. Knock down everything around it, and then stack that brush around it. One effort produces protection and increases sunlight.
7.
Go light on fencing materials. I've been using plastic tenax fence with no problems. It's lighter, requires less post strength to hold up, and is far cheaper. It can be had for 50% less per foot than wire fencing. Here's a link to tenax on amazon.
