Installing Deer Protection Around Arborvitae

Normally each fall, sometime in late November or early December, we place protective devices around the arborvitae in the Gethsemane Prayer Garden. We use protective netting on the smaller plants and metal fencing around the larger ones – both have done an excellent job over the last 10 years. Historically the deer have walked through this two-acre garden every winter day yet did not damage any of the arbs.

The protective netting is a thin black plastic that orchards often use to keep birds away. These are tied to metal fence posts and wrapped around the smaller plants which retains their shape and aesthetic beauty – from a distance, it is hard to see that the netting is there.

For a large cluster of arborvitae, we install fencing that does not have the same aesthetic beauty:

Photo from January 2013

Today, with six inches of snow on the ground and temperature in the 20's, I attempted to install that thin black netting. It was too cold – after an hour, I gave up with frozen fingers as I thought, "Why didn't I listen to the voice of God?"

Last week, when there was no snow on the ground and temperatures were in the low 40's, I had time to put it up. That Friday morning I knew the Lord was nudging me to get out there, but instead worked on some other things at home that I thought were also important. Wrong again – I was able to spend an hour that Friday afternoon, but distraction again kept me away from the deer protection work. When will I ever learn?

God does speak and it is always for the good. I, like others, need to be more consistent about listening and then obeying our Lord.

Preparing a Rose Bed for Winter in Zones 4 and 5

It has been a disappointing year for the roses in the Gethsemane Prayer Garden. The 'Bonica' roses opened in mid-June as usual but the blossoms were not nearly as abundant as previous years. From the second week in July until the beginning of October, there were only a few buds on these normally gorgeous pink-flowered plants. The red 'Knockout' roses which are intermixed with the 'Bonica' in the center two beds were also fairly sparse. Only the yellow 'Knockout' roses in another flower bed were very prolific and wonderfully fragrant.

The difference I believe between the two pink and red rose beds and the yellow bed is the previous winter's treatment. In recent years I have not been protecting the roses from the winter elements, and last year the deer found the first two rose beds. The deer did not find the yellow bed of roses so they abundantly flourished. The deer first ate the leaves on the pink and red roses, and then progressed down the plants to where only 6" stubs were left.

Ten years ago when we first planted the roses, they were pruned in November to 12-18" and then heavily mulched so that only a few stems were visible. This worked well to keep out the deer, but in the third and fourth years, the voles (I thought they were moles but have since been corrected) girdled some of the plants. Also the plants did not reach their maximum potential size – the 'Bonica' roses were never taller than twenty-four inches tall.

On the advice of a local nursery, we stopped pruning and mulching the roses; they suggested that the shrub roses did not require the same finicky care that tea and floribunda roses demand. The damage from the voles was much less and the deer that regularly pass through the garden had for some reason stayed away. But not last winter!

Today I came across an article prepared by a member of the American Rose Society named Jack Falker. His blog entry http://jack-rosarian.blogspot.com/2013/09/voles-and-castor-oil.html offers hope that these tiny Pacman-style creatures will be brought under control while using traditional pruning and mulching techniques. He recommends a treatment of castor oil on the roses! I'll be giving that a try. (Jack also offers a blog article on winter protection: http://jack-rosarian.blogspot.com/2013/09/winter-protecting-your-roses.html.) Based on Jack's advice and my previous experience, we will cut the roses back to 12-18" when the first hard freeze arrives (usually in November) and then mound them with mulch.

There is some debate as to when to stop dead heading: some years we stopped in September and other years we stopped in late October. My sense is that if we are cutting the roses back to 12-18", then we can continue to optimize flower production; but if the drastic pruning was not part of our plans, we should have stopped our pruning much earlier so that the plant naturally prepares itself for winter.

This summer, rather than the normally prolific 'Bonica' and 'Knockout' roses, we had a vigorous production of "blind shoots." A blind shoot is a cane that produces lots of leaves but no flower buds – hence it is blind. I had been attributing the blind shoots to the very unusual weather patterns: sometimes very rainy and sometimes very hot. I also suspected that we may have over-fertilized the plants which released too much nitrogen. Possibly both of these reasons contributed, yet that does not explain why the yellow 'Knockout' roses were so vigorous.

I now suspect that the blind shoot problem had three contributing factors: the deer from last winter, the extra application of fertilizer to compensate for the severe damage, and the irregular weather. I pruned the canes in September that had no buds, finding the first branch with five leaves. Now we finally are getting some gorgeous flowers once again.

And Lord willing, we hope to have better results next year.

Early Spring in the Prayer Garden

It was a sunny but cool day in the Gethsemane Prayer Garden today. This was my first chance to work in the garden since the sudden snows arrived on December 3rd. And if you are from this area, you know that the snows never left until mid-March.

The garden looked good as the primrose were just starting to blossom and the daffodils were peaking their little green tips, possibly two or four inches high. Its hard to identify the plants this time of year unless you know what is planted where. I found some pretty reddish-purple tips of the bellflower just where they had mostly died off in previous years. I'm encouraged that they're coming back – in time, they will grow stems and leaf out, but for now they are just barely visible to the eye.

The biggest struggle this winter was the deer. Other years, we have never had deer in the garden over the winter; the sudden heavy snow in December caught us by surprise so we did not have time to wrap some of the trees and shrubs. By the time we got out to protect them on December 31st, some of the arborvitae and a real nice columnar pine were chewed right down. We also had damage to some hemlocks which I did not expect at all.

There are several hundred shrubs and trees in the garden and most of them did not get touched by the deer. Our predominate evergreens are junipers of all sorts which the deer did not devour. I enjoy the many various shapes and colors of junipers, some tall and upright, some low and spreading, and many assorted shapes in between. We use them to provide screening from the parking lot which can be busy at times, and to provide private areas within the garden for speaking with God.

The soft stone-dust pathways were a mess when I got there today. The deer had been generous in eating on one side of their body and dropping the digested portions out the other side. Also, plant debris from trees and flowers had blown onto the path so it really looked rough. It always amazes me how much better the garden looks when the walkways are raked this way – inviting us to walk where we want and enjoy our time with the Lord.

As Jesus said to his disciples, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you" (John 20:21).

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End Note: The overall theme for this series of articles is flowers and plants, showing how they point to love. Sometimes I write 'how to' do something, other times the emphasis is a status update, or the article will be about how a plant or flower touched my heart. All of these writings are based on plants from the Gethsemane Prayer Garden in Syracuse, NY. Please consider some of the other blog articles: Index of Articles About the Gethsemane Prayer Garden.