Oh Deer My Hemlocks Need Help

March 6, 2009 9:06 AM

My hemlocks are looking pretty pale at the moment. Help me get them back to their former glory.

Deer have decimated my beautiful row of hemlocks that I worked so diligently to keep lively - my pride and joy really. The hedge is about 8 ft. tall and it's the lower half that's now bare, just low enough to accommodate their easy munching. How can I repair this and promote lower growth, knowing that hemlocks are slow to rebound?

posted by terrier319 to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

I assume you talking about hemlock trees, not hemlock the poisonous shrub. Trees do not sprout new limbs from the lower trunk. New limbs only come from the growing leader at the very top of the tree. So you are never going to get new branches at the base. At best, if you can keep the deer away, you may see some of the lower surviving branches may become more vigorous and bushy, but that is about it.

The yellowing is probably not due to the deer nibbling. It could be something else. For example eastern hemlock species are susceptible to a type of aphid or spider mites. Hemlocks like acid soil so you may also have a soil problem.
posted by JackFlash at 9:55 AM on March 6, 2009

Pale coloring is sometimes a sign of nitrogen deficiency. Get your soil tested to see what it's up to.
posted by Pants! at 10:00 AM on March 6, 2009

To expound a little on JackFlash, the culprit in question is wooly adelgid. A friend of mine had to cut down a whole bunch of hemlocks because of it.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 10:40 AM on March 6, 2009

Response by poster: disappointing. I spend so much time and money on these. Yes, they are trees. So pruning the top will not inspire lower growth?
posted by terrier319 at 10:52 AM on March 6, 2009

You could have hemlock blight, which has killed off most of the Southeastern stands of hemlocks in the US. The yellowing would be the worst sign. For the deer you can try fencing them to reduce stress on your trees, spraying some deer repellant [most hardware stores I know carry it in some form or another- it's a bitter tasting spray you put on your plants to help repell deer] or get a motion-activated sprayer. I don't know where you would get one of those; my friend built one, but he says it works wonders on the deer and dogs that stry into his yard.
Best of luck with that- hemlocks are beautiful trees.
posted by shesaysgo at 10:57 AM on March 6, 2009

So pruning the top will not inspire lower growth?
No, pruning the top will just further stress the trees. The remaining lower branches will continue to grow and droop somewhat to fill in the gap (if the deer don't come back). As the trees grow taller, the green part and the bare part will look more proportional.
posted by JackFlash at 11:33 AM on March 6, 2009