[NAFEX] Deer and European Plums
Steve
sdw12986 at aol.com
Sun Jul 19 12:53:33 EDT 2009
Do deer have a special fondness for European plums?
A few days ago I was in my yard and discovered some unauthorized pruning
of a young plum tree. Mostly, just leaves were eaten off leaving stubs
lining the little branches. Some of the soft tips of branches were
chewed off too. Two of the branches with missing tips were a good 6 feet
off the ground. A nearby American Hybrid plum had just a few missing leaves.
Yesterday, I discovered my other, even smaller, European plum now has
some missing leaves and missing branch tips. So far, neither tree has
lost even 10% of its leaves so it's not too serious yet. I live right in
town where I didn't used to have to worry about deer. In recent years
they started showing up in the fall. (I discovered they like fallen
pears far more than apples.) Only rarely has there been evidence of a
summer visit.
Here's the weird part. Directly below the eaten branches of that first
tree, there is a clump of day lilies in full bud, just days from opening
the first flowers. Not a bud had been touched. Also, the plum trees are
not 20 feet from my vegetable garden. I found 2 tomato leaves with
missing ends. These were at the far end of the garden away from the plum
trees. Other than that possible deer damage, nothing has been touched.
Steve in the Adirondacks
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