Planting A New Hedge

[Wendelspanswick]

Hi again.
We have 15 acres of woodland and meadow and we want to plant a hedge across the meadow, about 200m in length, mainly to keep walkers on the footpath and not traipsing willynilly across the land.
A few questions:
Anyone have a cheap source for rabbit spirals?
How to keep deer off the young hedge?
We are planning to put a stock fence up on one side of the new hedge but we don't want to put up a fence on both sides if we can help it.
Thanks in advance.

[Rich]

I got a load of spirals from here,

http://www.scotplantsdirect.co.uk/growi ... at_71.html

but haven't dealt with them for a year or so so there may be better deals on ebay?

Deer could prove a problem, very expensive to physically stop them, you could use tenax fencing as a temporary barrier, but actuallly if the deer aren't in plague proportions the hedge would probably tolerate a bit of browsing, you'll want to keep it trimmed regularly to promote side branches anyway. If you get really young plants however they could pull them out of the ground before they root properly, So it's probably cheaper to just replace a few plants if necessary, than try and fence them out. Strangely I've noticed they really like holly and at about £4 a plant it could get expensive if you were planning on using it. In a meadow though, there should be plenty of other stuff for them to eat,

[Wendelspanswick]

I think we qualify for deer in 'plague' proportions, we have a herd of Red Deer that regularly use the meadow for rutting etc.
Our land used to be owned by the League Against Cruel Sports as a deer sanctuary!

[oldclaypaws]

It might reduce Deer damage if you plant a portion of 'sacrificial trees'- tasty favourite Deer snacks to draw them away from everything else. My Roe seem very partial to sweeter juicy trees like Willow, Sweet Chestnut, Field Maple and Sycamore, but less fussed by Hazel, which they only nibble occasionally.

Ultimately, if its a persistent issue, the answer is 'bang', which has its own rewards and helps maintain a balance. That's the route we'll take, courtesy of a pal who'll do all the gory bits for a half share of the burgers.

[Dexter's Shed]

although I know a lot of plot holders are against killing,but Deer can be controlled legally for woodland management, and you could make a considerable amount of money by offering Deer stalking days, you may not want to do this yourself, but you could always rent out that permission to someone else with suitable qualifications/insurances etc

[oldclaypaws]

I've heard that as we're under a Tory administration that includes many landowners, there are apparently plans afoot to allow the stalking, control and culling of thieves, trespassers and illegal immigrants. 'Hoody hunting' is to have a season from Sundays to Thursday each week, (apparently they breed on Fridays and Saturdays), and mantraps can be set with Tennants Super or Premiership footy tickets as bait.

A bit of progressive government policy at last?

[Jackdaw]

It wouldn't surprise me, the Silver spoon brigade would like nothing more than to eradicate us plebs !!!.
Anyone with less than 1000 acres just isn't worth bothering with old chum .

[Wendelspanswick]

Culling is out of the question as the League Against Cruel Sports have retained the sporting rights to the land, not that we were interested in the sporting rights anyhow.

[Dexter's Shed]

Culling is out of the question as the League Against Cruel Sports have retained the sporting rights to the land, not that we were interested in the sporting rights anyhow.

I would look into that further, if you need to, as tenant farmers still have the right to carry out pest control even when the sporting rights have been given out to third party
yours would still come under pest control via woodland management rather than sport

[oldclaypaws]

I thought the same Dexxy, but if the site has a history of being a Deer sanctuary and the League have a yeh or neh veto on taking out the darlings, they are hardly likely to approve culling even on environmental grounds as it would leave them open to accusations of hypocrisy. Also, I think our friend Wendypan is like myself, a bit of a woose and doesn't want to be knee deep in gore and carcasses. I'm sure a grazing herd of red deer is a pleasing sight, provided they are nibbling the right bits.