I house my chickens in a strong shed with doors that lock and a small hatch that I can close and latch at night. The latch will keep out anything except racoons, but we haven't had problems with them for a couple of years. Our pen is large, 65' X 100' so we couldn't completely cover the top. Our coop is a wooden shed with a head height of 12' and the perches are 2' from the top. Most of the chickens can fly up, but some of the older ones use a little ramp to a lower perch and then fly over to the higher one about 5' away. It's too far for a coon to jump over to it even if he climbs the ramp. The chickens feel safe up there as they huddle together every night. The floor is two layers of 5/8" plywood with vinyl sheet floor. The vinyl makes it easy to clean and sanitize between bedding changes. To stop predatory birds we hung string and wire in a criss-cross pattern at the top of the fenceposts. On one of the wires we hung a pair of cover-alls that has long sleeves. It looks like a man standing right in front of the shed with his arms up in the air. In fact the only predators we've had trouble with since we hung Clyde out there are rat snakes. I killed a 6 footer this summer - it gave me the willies when he crossed behind me at the door... But, anyway.... The fence is 8' cedar fence posts with 18" set in concrete and standard chicken wire up to the top. We let the top 12" of chicken wire curl outward so that if something climbs the wire they get to the top of the wire and fall backward on the outside of the pen. We also buried the bottom 6" of chicken wire angling it outward to prevent diggers. Two years ago we had a racoon who figured out how to climb the wire right at the fence post and then to hang onto the post and bend the chicken wire to the inside of the pen. He then managed to get inside of the coop by unlatching the little chicken door. The perches are high so I know he didn't grab one of the chickens, but I had a brave roo who probably attacked the racoon. He followed the racoon all the way to the fence (or was dragged), but the coon couldn't get him over the fence before I got there and he got away. Roo lost an eye but healed just fine otherwise. Anyway, I guess the bottom line is there aren't very many systems that are compoletely safe, but the more protection you can provide the better. And Velvet Sparrows web site is bookmarked on my computers because she knows her chicken stuff. Cheryl

Deer also damaged my IE and I put a 4' welded wire circle around it. Then they reached branches above the circle and snapped and stripped them. I had to add an extension to 6' to stop the damage. Grrr. I have wire cages and fences all over my yard, and around all my vegetable beds now. So far my cheap fences are working, just 4-5 strands of wire run between posts, a foot or less apart. I leave lower branches on trees so they can't get close to the trunks to scratch the velvet off their antlers and destroy the bark. Also they strip the lower branches but can't reach the upper ones. This year they're even eating my geraniums and totally stripped some roses that had been OK before, and ate part of some blueberry plants. Repellants can work but need to be reapplied all the time so I go for barriers.

About the only way to keep them out of where you do not want them is with good, tight fencing, that also goes undergound at least 1 foot and outward at least 1 foot. That doesn't always work either. Juvenile groundhogs are excellent climbers. I've been fighting groundhogs for years and I have a strong wire fence that goes 4 feet above ground and a foot below. And they still defeat it in various ways - see the attached link. They are territorial so if you can kill the ones near your garden you'll at least get a period of relief. When I've been able to find their burrow I've gassed them. You can also live-trap them, but where I live it's illegal to release them off your property so you have to kill them, although you might consider releasing them inside your garden just to see how they are getting in/out so you can plug that weakness. Here is a link that might be useful: Super Groundhog!

The 'Japanese' tag threw me as well :-) Neither genus has any particular association with Japan! IMO, laburnums - golden chain tree - are rather nondescript out of flower and even kind of weedy looking. And very often covered in masses of very poisonous, dried, bean-like seed pods. Everyone has differing opinions on trees they like but I would never consider a single laburnum to be a "centerpiece" tree. It just doesn't have enough presence or appeal to fit that distinction. And I can't say it would enhance a planting of Japanese maples!! More of a distraction in my book 🥴