Nothing extreme for me, but bloodmeal should help to keep them away. Prey animals (deer, rabbits, etc) are very tune into the smell of dry blood, as it means there is a predator about. I have used it, and it sure seemed to work.

Arktrees

Well, if they'd let me, I'd put in my own little version of the Berlin Wall or the Korean DMZ. But I hear my local township officials frown on land mines for deer exclusion :-)

Blood meal is a great attractor for many digging animals like dogs and many omnivorous animals like raccoons and rats that could consider parts of your your new trees as a delicacy.

I use wire cages around many of my trees, but I wouldn't really call that overboard. It works well for deer and many smaller animals.

i drank a quart of jim beam.. and lashed myself.. naked.. to the tree ...

ken

ROFL...I bet that took care of the pesky neighbors as well as the varmints. It might be an attractant though for those guys in white coats.

Nothing like lashing your naked body if front of the animals to let them know just how crazy serious you are!

I can just picture a nude dude, red all over with 2 black eyes and an evil snarl on his face, with a willow switch in one hand and Jim Beam in the other whipping himself like a lunatic while the racoons, rabbits, squirrels and deer all gathered at the forest edge watch in horror! I know you meant "latched" instead of "lashed" but man that was a funny mental image XD

LOL Brandon

Was that Jim Beam Rye...or were you just being wry?

Toronado, you could use black plastic bird netting and a post on either side of the tree. The netting freaks out the deer nearly as much as Ken freaked out his neighbors.

tj

Oh, yeah, maybe I should give an actual answer, rather than just being a smart ....

I had very good results this past summer hanging mesh and/or plastic bags with rotten quail eggs in some of my young apple trees. I did some in the mesh type bags that things like onions come in. Some of the others I did in ziploc type plastic bags with some holes punched in them to allow the odor to escape. I noted that the plastic bags smelled worse and longer, because rain got in there and made a vile smelling brew. Both worked, though.

Honestly, there were a few times when I was walking the dog on still mornings and got close enough, say within 10-15 feet, of the rotten eggs to get a good whiff, and it turned my stomach, so it was kind of nasty to do, but it worked.

No special reason it has to be quail eggs, I just used those because I raised some Japanese quail and decided these small eggs were too small to bother with in the kitchen. Any eggs would work, just let them get stinky -- crack the shells a bit so bacteria can get in there, but not so much that the contents ooze all out.

I use 3 foot tall hardware cloth, the green one, around all of my trees individually. I leave that up all year 'round because I live in the country and there is no leash law, so neighbors feel like they have every right to let their (many) dogs roam free. I don't want them around my trees.

And then in the fall, which we did yesterday, we put up a 6 foot green galvanized hardware cloth on the outside of that fence to keep the rabbits out. Our snow line is about 4-4.5 feet so we need about 2 feet higher than that.

I also, in the fall, wrap white tree wrapping around the trunks all the way up to the first branches. I use this red "outdoor" tape that is a very bright red and I swirl the tape around it. The trunks look exactly like candy canes which our 6 year old daughter loves to look out and see them. We have a major vole issue out here so also mulch with pea gravel instead of anything else since mulch, at least where I live, attracts more voles.

Then I take a somewhat larger gravel, I forget what it's called, but it's at Home Depot, and I pour 4 bags of that rock around the outside of each fencing to keep the voles from getting any ideas of wanting to burrow underneath the fences. It's worked perfectly now for 2 years and we have a lot of voles.

My neighbors would definitely consider what I do as going overboard. The Christmas tree farmer next door doesn't do ANYTHING to his trees, he doesn't water them or anything, and neither does my other next door neighbor who planted a sugar maple ON OUR PROPERTY LINE. He did that 5 years ago, and I nearly went into cardiac arrest over it. I didnt say anything to him, but thankfully he hasn't taken care of it at all. He doesn't mulch, or even water the tree, and he weedeated way to close to it, and cut 90% of the trunk at the very bottom all the way around. Thankfully it is on the decline.

I love trees, but I don't want a sugar maple planted on our property line, especially when the sugar maple would only be 15 feet or so from our back door. This is one time I am glad someone didnt take care of their tree, and it appears to be dying frankly. I feel guilty for even saying that, but this neighbor let one of his weeping willows stay up when he knew it was dead and one of it's gigantic branches came down and crashed into our backyard, and it was only then that he cut the tree down. He doesn't take care of his trees at all, which is why I don't want to deal with that maple 25 years from now.

Nothing too overboard. I have dollar store deodorant soap on a string. You told me to use soap, so trying that this year. The deer damaged tree (last year buck rub tree) I got some of that black drainage pipe and sliced a long opening and put it around the trunk. Your Metasequoia probably have too thick a trunk for that unless it's a baby. I've thought of using dog hair, but the soap may be good enough for these deer. How about putting some bells on the branches? You'd think that may scare them. I might get some bells at Dollar tree for extra protection for mine lower on the property. Hope you find something that helps.

Poaky, you know i did put up some bells. Cheap "fishing rod bells" in the fence I built.

So far the soap has worked on the generic red maple. Just seems too good to be true.

All my friends already got their deer this season....

Perhaos i will use Ken's method!

yeah.. the neighbors are not talking to me anymore ...

i dont know if that is a curse.. or a god send.. lol

no.. i was thinking lashed.. as in a pirate lashing his enemy to the main mast ... bound and gagged.. and ready to die for the cause .... sorta a Christ on the cross mind picture .... [but for the drunken stupor, or course ...] .. one must sacrifice for the salvation of his flock .. or collection ... [I am going to burn in hell.. dont you think]

ken

ps:.. real answer ... 4 foot sections of corrugated drain pipe.. slit length-wise ... 4 foot in case of 2 feet of snow ... left on for a few years .... and some were attacked the year it was removed ...

Are fishing bells the kind that make noise? I'm talking Jingle bells kinda bells. Kens plan may work unless it's rut season! I don't think that would be a good time to try it! Another forum said that coyote urine is in some deer repellants. You'd have to reapply after rain though. My trees are fine until fall and winter, there's lots to eat elsewhere til then. My veg garden is close to the house and all that preys on veggies in summer are bugs, I don't use bug sprays, maybe some BT. My lower yard trees are the victims, the upper are (so far) not touched.

I put wire fences around my trees too. I take them off in the summer though because there has never seemed to be any damage then and it's easier to cut the grass. It gets harder to set them up every year because they keep growing so much. :)

Some of the zone 6 and colder fig growers build some pretty elaborate structures to protect their trees.

Yep, like this one from the Fig Forum:
{{gwi:477031}}

It looks like the window isn't glazed. I guess keeping the frost off is good enough? I thought of getting a Celeste fig and protecting it with a wire loop fence with fall leaves up to the top. That would be hard to move ( the pic shed) you would think. With help maybe not so hard.

The window isn't really a window. It's an access port that was fitted with an insulated door.

Ilovemytrees, I didn't realize that voles ate the roots of trees? They have wreaked havoc on some of my beloved native perennial roots this year though, despite the fact that my cat has killed DOZENS of them this summer.

I haven't done too much for trees, except the first winter after planting some expensive Emerald Green Arborvitae, I wrapped them with bird netting to keep the deer from munching. Just did that one year though, and the deer haven't bothered them even without bird netting. If the deer are really hungry, they have numerous meatball and meatloaf Yews to eat in the neighbor's yard, which they seem to like even more than Arborvitae.

I do protect some veggies with wire fencing that has a 2x4 inch grid. Cut it down to the desired height and encircle the plants. I also leave sharp pokey wire ends sticking up to deter deer and woodchucks. This works very well, although I have to be careful not to skewer myself! This type of fencing would probably work equally well for trees.

We had a nice day so I walked around the yard. I noticed 2 of my Nuttalls oaks were dead from last years buck rub. I pruned off the damage and they dismally struggled through this past growing season. They finally gave up. I replaced them with some seed/acorns Cherrybark oak. The shorties rabbits/groundhogs went after my new Durand oak so I had to tie soap on them. I thought they wouldn't bother the tree where it was but the shorties will come closer I guess.