Recycle Your Fresh Christmas Tree and Protect Against Deer Browse

Take advantage of this smart use of your old Christmas tree. Protect your garden plants from deer feeding by placing cut boughs from your recycled tree in a tee-pee fashion around plants.

Smart gardeners can get one more use out of their fresh tree before it hits the compost pile, and at the same time protect small shrubs and perennials from deer browse. (Does that add up to two bangs and no bucks?) The tough growing conditions this past summer combined with heavy seed production on oaks a year ago has limited the number of acorns this year—also a favorite food for deer. Couple this decrease in one of their nutritional staples with poor summer growth of their other leafy food sources; my prediction is voracious feeding on ornamental plants. I have witnessed this in my garden already. Deer that typically browse on a few shrubs and perennials in late winter have nearly stripped them clean, and it is still early. Repellents …

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