White Tailed Deer

The white-tailed deer and black-tailed deer populations found in suburban and urban areas across America have increased dramatically since the 1960s. As deer begin to become plentiful, homeowners initially enjoy seeing them and may actually encourage deer to come into their yard by feeding them. Traditionally rural townships becoming suburban may ban hunting or place restrictions on firearm use for safety reasons. Bambi begins to settle in and lose his or her sense of fear for humans.

Black Tailed Deer

I once heard some preliminary research results that said that deer in suburban areas have more fawns per doe that they do in the wilder areas. More of these fawns live to reproductive age and then, they too have more twins and triplets than their forest cousins. About the only things that kill them are old age or cars and trucks. There are no predators anymore for them to fear.

Homeowner attitudes change, however, when landscape plants suffer heavy browsing damage and gardens become difficult to grow. In addition to browsing, damage may occur in the fall when bucks begin rubbing antlers on small trees or young nursery stock.

Twins are more common in suburban areas.

Controlling deer damage in the home landscape is not easy. Of course books have been (and will be) written about ways to prevent deer damage, but there are basically six methods for trying to minimize the damage:

1) Exclusion by deer-proof fence
2) Scare or frightening tactics
3) Habitat modification
4) Hunting
5) Repellents
6) Alternative (non-palatable) plantings

Exclusion - Physically excluding pests such as deer from our landscapes, gardens, orchards, etc. is the most effective way to prevent damage. Unfortunately, it also the most expensive and often, least compatible approach for homeowners.

Nice fence but not tall enough to deter a hungry deer!

A deer-proof fence does not fit well with most home landscapes and can be very expensive if large areas are to be protected. For small vegetable gardens, a deer-proof fence may be constructed using standard wire fence attached up 12-foot tall posts but this would not look so good around your ornamental landscape.

Electric fences are less expensive and can be just as effective, however, they do require regular maintenance. For best results they should be constructed before serious damage occurs and must be kept electrified at all times. Researchers have had success using a three-wire electric fence adorned with aluminum foil strips attached at 5-10 foot intervals. The ends of the strips are smeared with peanut butter for “bait.” When the deer lick the bait, they get a “tickle” that warns them of the fence. Also, it is best if the wires are staggered away from each other and not in a single plane. Deer may learn to jump electric fences if they are incorrectly installed or maintenance is lacking.

Scare Tactics- Frightening deer usually only works for short periods of time before they

Deer damage on Yew

adapt to the specific tactic. Loud music, water sprayers or lights attached to motion detectors may provide temporary. However, the location of these items will need to be moved every week or so because the deer will quickly learn their location and avoid them.

Longer term success has been reported by people who install the so-called “invisible dog fence” around the entire perimeter of their property. Once the dog is trained to stay inside this area, it may be left outside at night to scare off deer.

Habitat Modification – This approach is expensive and may actually attract deer if misapplied. A professional wildlife biologist should be consulted if this is the desired course of action.

Hunting – Population reduction by sport hunting is the most cost effective, long-term solution and should be seriously considered if damage is wide spread. However, hunting is now prohibited in most suburban or urban areas due to safety issues in populated neighborhoods. Be sure to check with local units of government for specific regulations. My township has authorized specific bow hunters to kill deer in parks and public areas. The meat is donated to the local food pantry.

Repellents- This is the method that is most commonly used by homeowners. Repellents discourage deer from feeding by making the plants either taste or smell bad. The key

Repellants work IF applied frequently.

factor with any repellent is that it MUST BE ON THE PLANT AT ALL TIMES to be effective. When the deer bends over to sniff at the plant, it must smell bad or if it sticks its tongue out for a taste, it must be very unappealing. All repellents have a tendency to wear off over time. Eventually, the deer can tolerate the diluted smell or taste and will start to graze. The challenge for the homeowner is to keep the repellent material fresh and pungent on the plant. That can be tough but, if you do it, you will have success.

Alternate Plantings – Although their feeding habits may change seasonally, deer choose plants based on nutritional needs, palatability, and past experience. Damage to landscape ornamental plants may occur at any time of the year. When deer numbers are high or food availability is low, damage may occur on plants that they would normally not touch. Deer may exhibit localized taste preferences so what they eat may vary somewhat from site to site.

Hostas or Celery stalks? Deer have been here.

Research has documented that deer may eat as many as 100 different species of plants in a given locale. However, they do tend to avoid certain species and this knowledge can be helpful in choosing plants for sites where deer area major problem. Check with your local Extension office to see if they have a list of plants that are or are not generally eaten by deer.

Well, those are just a few ideas and factors to consider when dealing with deer in the landscape. Of course, there is no “one size fits all” solution but these are the major alternatives.

As always, if you have landscape gardening questions or have a topic you would like to see covered, please let me know. Also, I have recently published a couple of eBooks that you might want to check out. The titles are, “A Rookie’s Guide to Designing Beds and Borders” and “A Rookie’s Guide to Implementing Beds and Borders“. I am currently working on the next eBook, “A Rookie’s Guide to Hostas, Hostas, Hostas” which should be ready by the end of November, 2012. Also, “A Rookie’s Guide to Maintaining Beds and Borders” is in the works for February of 2013.

Seedlings of the boxelder tree (Acer negundo) have prominent “leaves of three” and are often mistaken for poison ivy.  As they grow, however, they soon form a tree-like central stem and stand upright on their own. Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) is a vine and needs something upon which they can grow such as a tree trunk or fence to raise their foliage toward the sun.

Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) is not a fir (Abies species), however, Kirk Douglas was the star of Sparticus. Douglas fir was named after the plant explorer, David Douglas. It is a tree that somewhat resembles a hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) thus the genus name, Pseudotsuga. The specific ephithet, menziesii, is in honor of another famous plant explorer, Archibald Menzies. Gee, there some of these scientific names actually do have some rhyme and reason.

Dutch elm disease killed primarily American elms (Ulmus americana). The disease is believed to have come from Holland on some veneer wood, thus the name. You would be amazed at how many people think that it attacks “Dutch” elms when there is no such thing…as far as I know, anyway.

Oregon grape holly (Mahonia aquifolium) is not a holly (Ilex species). It may be from Oregon but the purplish fruit it develops are not good for making wine…at least not in the classic sense. I know that people make wine out of all kinds of stuff including dandelion greens so who knows.

The roots of black walnut trees (Juglans nigra) form a substance called juglone that is poisonous to many other plants. Tomato plants growing near walnut trees will often wilt and die in late July. However, many other plants do not seem to be affected. For those that are impacted by juglone, the chemical gets into the roots and soon gums up the water carrying vessels. Thus, the plants start to wilt during the hottest part of the summer when water demands are greatest.

Our beloved, Hostas used to be called Funkia after a guy named Heinrich Christian Funck. There was a rock group called the Funkadelics but I don’t think they had anything to do with hostas. Hostas were also called Plantain Lily but that too has been largely abandoned by the gardening public. Today it is simply, Hosta.

All azaleas (Rhododendron species) are actually rhododendrons (Rhododendron species). Only a small number of rhododendrons are azaleas. How do you tell the difference? Heavy duty fans of the genus have several ways they use to divide the thousands of species and cultivars of rhododendrons. However, one simple delineation is that rhododendrons generally bear their flowers at the tips of their stems. Azaleas generally have flowers all along the length of the stem too.

Spider mites are not insects. Insects have six legs. Spiders and their relatives have eight. Eight is Enough was a television program back in the 70’s. Perhaps the key here is to know that many of the commonly used insecticides are aimed at…guess what…six legged creatures. They may not be effective against the eight legged critters that are sucking juices from our plants. You can learn more about insects and even help us identify some…Name That Bug.

Staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) has red berries borne at the tips of the branch. Poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix or Rhus vernix) has white berries borne along the stem. Chuck Berry is one of my favorite singers. Poison sumac is almost always found in wet, swampy areas while staghorn sumac is usually found in higher ground.

Grape hyacinth are not hyacinths. They are in the genus Muscari. Their fruit makes lousy wine. See Oregon grape holly above for a discussion of wine makers.

Bats have their young during the first two weeks of June. The runt of the litter is always named Robin.

Yellowjackets, wasps and hornets live just one year. Only the queens survive the winter and re-establish new nests the following spring. The rock band, “Queen” minus their wonderful, late lead singer, Freddie Mercury, maintains a nest in England.

Although we often use the term “bug” as being synonymous with insect, “plant bugs” are a specific subdivision of the insect world. They are insects of the Order Hemiptera whose mouthparts are adapted for piercing plants and sucking their juices. Several of them are common pests in the home landscape.

The tarnished plant bug (Lygus lineolaris), Harlequin bug (Dindymus versicolour) and the four lined plant bug (Poecilocapus lineatus) commonly cause this type of damage. These critters have round mouth parts that attach to the surface of leaves, stems or buds while the insect sucks juices out. The bugs spittle is toxic to the plant so the injured area dies and turns black leaving a spot. After a large number of bites, the entire leaf may curl up and take on a malformed appearance often mistaken for a disease.

The tarnished plant bug is 1/4 inch long and green to brown in color. It is a very active bug and moves rapidly. The adults hibernate in leaf mold, tree bark or under mulch.

The four lined plant bug has been especially active this past summer. It is about a quarter of an inch long and is greenish yellow with four black lines on its back. The immature nymph form of the insect is reddish in color and appears usually about early June. It tends to feed on members of the mint family, herbs and several flowering plants including chrysanthemums, aster and even, occasionally, hostas.

It is often difficult to observe plant bugs at work and the damage just seems to “appear” which also lends to the belief that it is a disease. Plant bugs tend to be very shy. When they hear you approach, they will scurry away and hide lower in the foliage. If you stand over the plant quietly for a while and watch without moving, they may come back out onto the leaf surface and begin to feed again.

A very patient person with a lot of time on his or her hands can treat the bugs by spraying them individually with insecticidal soap. Remember that the soapy solution has to go directly onto the insect’s body and it is not good enough to just spray the foliage. Soaps work by melting the waxing coating on the external skeleton of the insect. When the wax is gone, the bug will dehydrate and die.

Other organic pesticides such as sabadilla dust or rotenone applied to the foliage can be effective. Also, of course, there are synthetic chemical insecticides that are also labeled for use against plant bug damage.  Of course, the final decision on your course of action is up to you. If the damage is not severe, you might just choose to live with the little creatures.

As always, if you have an questions, comments or requests for specific topics to be covered in a future, blog, please let us know.

Coreopsis tripteris

Welcome to the blog from PlantsGalore.Com. My name is Ralph Heiden and I am a retired Extension Horticulture Educator from the Midwest. Over 30 years as a professional horticulturist, I have gained a lot of education and experience…some of it quite interesting. In this blog and with my website, I hope to continue to share what I have learned with my fellow backyard gardeners.

Although I was once forced to be a “generalist” covering all aspects of horticulture, my retirement gives me the freedom to concentrate on my main love, ornamental horticulture. So, you won’t hear much about fruit and vegetables or greenhouses on these pages. My energy will be focused on ornamental trees, shrubs, annuals, biennials, perennials and vines that are used in the home landscape. I have developed a special interest and “expertise” in hostas since I have gardened in the shade for several decades. That is why I have created a website called HostaHelper.Com where I currently have photos and information on over 2,400 different hostas.

Anyway, to kick off this new blog, here are a few anecdotes about some of the interesting experiences I encountered while answering a couple thousand telephone calls each year during my tenure as Horticulture Educator.

Most of the calls I received at my office were straight forward requests for information about problems people were having with their plants. I tried my best to give an answer or to direct the people to someone else who might be able to help. Occasionally, I would get a call that made me sit back and laugh or shake my head in wonder. Here are a few examples.

Someone called and asked  “Who was the Extension Agent on the 1960′s television show ‘Green Acres’?” The strange part was that I knew that the name was Hank Kimble.  After all, Hank was my boyhood hero growing up on our farm next to the Oliver Wendell Douglas farm in Hooterville. Funny, but I never did figure out what state I lived in but the Douglases were really nice people…especially Lisa.

Once I got a call from a lady who said she opened her clothes washer and found a snake curled up inside. About once every spring, I would get a frantic call from someone who had dozens of snakes lounging in the sun all around the foundation of their house. This happens most often to people who have old, “Michigan” basements made of rocks instead of concrete. The snakes would find a hollowed out cavity outside next to the basement wall and slither in to spend the winter. They could survive in the heat that came through the wall into the cavity. Often, there could be a hundred or more snakes present. In the spring, a few would get confused and wander indoors through cracks in the wall. The others would wind up outside to sun themselves on a warm spring day.

Who? Me?

One person demanded to know how to rid her property of squirrels that were pestering her children. She lived in a wooded subdivision surrounded by old oak trees in all directions. I wasn’t able to give any good advice in this case other than, “I guess you’ll just have to learn to live with them.” I really don’t know what she expected me to say and I sensed that she was disappointed with my lack of an instant cure.

Some years we had trouble with grubs destroying lawns throughout the county. One person I talked to thought that the grubs were brought in by the smoke from the county incinerator. Several people believed that they were spread by the salt trucks in the winter since most of the damage was in the grass near the street and sidewalk.

It was a good observation, but the truth is that the grubs were most active there because the heat retained by the cement warmed up the soil sooner in the spring and kept warmer longer into the fall. This helped the cold blooded grubs to stay active longer so they could eat more grass roots and kill more plants than in a colder part of the lawn.

Horticulturally challenged people often do not stop to think that trees get old and die just like other biological organisms. They see trees as non-changing, static artifacts that are “just there” and should never change. I was always hearing the phrase, “That tree has been there for 50 years and it has never developed those spots on its leaves before.”

I eventually got to a point in life where I could reply, “You know, I have aches and pains I did not have twenty years ago either. I guess it’s all a part of getting older whether you are a tree or a human being.”

If you have landscape gardening questions or have a topic you would like to see covered, please let me know.

Also, I have recently published a couple of eBooks that you might want to check out. The titles are, “A Rookie’s Guide to Designing Beds and Borders” and “A Rookie’s Guide to Implementing Beds and Borders“.

I am currently working on the next eBook, “A Rookie’s Guide to Hostas, Hostas, Hostas” which should be ready by the end of December, 2012.

Home remedies come in all shapes and forms. Some actually work. Others do no harm but do not work either. A few will do a lot more harm than good. After a couple of decades of answering homeowners’ phone calls, I sometimes think I have heard them all…then the phone rings again and it is something new.

I have learned to not just discount home remedies out of hand. After listening to them, I always try to figure out why the remedy would possibly work. Occasionally, there is actually a scientific basis for at least some of the claims. Ammonia is a nitrogen source. Certain plants either taste bad or emit chemical aromas which may repel animals or insects. Unfortunately, there is not always a provable link between science and the belief of the gardener.

The key problem with many home remedies is that they are not tested scientifically. They are based on what is called “anecdotal observations.” Somebody’s neighbor had grubs in their lawn. In May a couple of years ago, they spread some lime. In June, he dug around the lawn and the grubs were gone. Therefore, the belief that lime will get rid of grubs begins to spread.

The science is that the grubs of the European chafer transform into beetles in June. They emerge from the ground, fly around one night, mate and lay their eggs in the soil and then the adults die. So, if you check for grubs in June, you probably won’t find any whether you treated or not. They are in their egg part of the life cycle and those eggs are mighty small.

The fact that the grubs disappeared after the lime application was only a coincidence. It was like observing that 4 people you know have been in traffic accidents during a full moon and concluding that a full moon causes traffic accidents.

Scientists certainly do not know everything either. However, by conducting experiments, they try to figure out a cause and effect relationship. The key to their experiments is to control all the factors involved in plant growth cycle. Then, they change just one factor and see what happens. They do this to a large number of plants to minimize the effects of random occurrence or chance. This is extremely difficult since there are so many factors involved in plant growth.

Many plant experiments are conducted in greenhouses where temperature, soil, humidity, light, water, nutrition and other factors can be closely controlled. The treatment being tested is applied to half of the plants and the others are left as “controls” for comparison purposes.

For example, say half the plants were treated with “X” and those plants grew taller than the ones which were not treated. Watering, temperature, soil, etc. were the same for all plants. The experiment would be repeated several times to see if the results can be duplicated.

Only then would it be reasonable to say that “X” had an effect on how tall this particular plant would grow. Even with such strict controls, the best that can be said is that “there is a high probability” that “X” made the difference. The results rarely show a 100% certainty of anything. Usually, a 95% certainty of the cause and effect relationship is needed to make any recommendation.