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siderman

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Looking for opinions on planting a row Schip Laurel. Should I wait till Spring or will the plants be established enough to get thru Winter if I plant soon. They are rated to hardiness zone 6 which is me in Brgn Cnty. Am doing a front yard re-do involving a bunch of excavation work and the laurel is a key part but dont want to start if Spring is a much better option. Thanx for any info.

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I'm not an expert by an means but it will only be about 3-4 months before it starts getting VERY cold.  I would wait until spring.  Unless you are getting a very, very good price/discount now (like 75% off).

You could prepare that area now for the spring planting.  It may look barren and not nice being empty but come spring you'll just drop them right in.

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Grew up on a wholesale nursery.  Now is a great time to do it.  Keep them watered until the temp's drop and make sure they get some water over the winter.  Normal rain and snow will probably be enough, but if we have a dry few weeks or a warm few days, make sure they get watered.  They'll make good progress establishing roots before winter and have a head start come spring.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Redlines said:

Put them in the deer love them.

this is whats driving me nuts, they're marketed as being deer resistant but keep reading that the deer do munch on them, maybe I'll put in some green giant arborvitae, they seem to thwart the deer but may get too big where I want them. I may need all winter to figure this out lol

1 hour ago, Golf battery said:

Buy them from me.  Im running a sale on them.    Dig to order.  

you're a bit of a drive for me but thanx

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9 hours ago, siderman said:

maybe I'll put in some green giant arborvitae, they seem to thwart the deer but may get too big where I want them.

I put in 3'-4' green giant arborvitae a couple of years ago.  The deer ate them down to stumps.   A couple of new decorative pear trees, too, which I'd surrounded with (admittedly light-duty) fencing.   The knocked down the fencing, and ate the bark off of the trees, killing them.   They also eat our Yucca plants, and every winter they strip all the leaves they can reach off of all of our holly bushes.   They seem to enjoy the taste of deer-repellant spray.

The deer in our neighborhood are right out of a Steven King novel...

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Rutgers has a pretty extensive list of plants rating (grading) their deer resistance A,B,C,D.

https://njaes.rutgers.edu/deerresistance/

 

As far as how late to plant.  You can pretty much plant any time the ground is workable.  It somewhat depends on what you are planting.  Generally, I don't plant trees or shrubs any later than November but have planted conifers in December.

 

When plants go dormant in the fall, they concentrate energy into root growth.  As long as you plant 6 weeks before a deep freeze, you should be okay.  Just make sure you plant 'em right. 

 

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20 minutes ago, 10X said:

I put in 3'-4' green giant arborvitae a couple of years ago.  The deer ate them down to stumps.   A couple of new decorative pear trees, too, which I'd surrounded with (admittedly light-duty) fencing.   The knocked down the fencing, and ate the bark off of the trees, killing them.   They also eat our Yucca plants, and every winter they strip all the leaves they can reach off of all of our holly bushes.   They seem to enjoy the taste of deer-repellant spray.

The deer in our neighborhood are right out of a Steven King novel...

I'm going to try a new deer repellant- its called Dog Piss lol

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8 hours ago, 10X said:

I put in 3'-4' green giant arborvitae a couple of years ago.  The deer ate them down to stumps.   A couple of new decorative pear trees, too, which I'd surrounded with (admittedly light-duty) fencing.   The knocked down the fencing, and ate the bark off of the trees, killing them.   They also eat our Yucca plants, and every winter they strip all the leaves they can reach off of all of our holly bushes.   They seem to enjoy the taste of deer-repellant spray.

The deer in our neighborhood are right out of a Steven King novel...

10x.  I guess youre more of a city type.  The deer didnt eat them.  The rubbed their antlers to get the felt off.  It probably looks like they did it with vengence.  If you have bucks and small trees that are upright. Its best to fence the new plants untill they get larger.  The plants.  Not the bucks.  

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45 minutes ago, Golf battery said:

10x.  I guess youre more of a city type.  The deer didnt eat them.  The rubbed their antlers to get the felt off.  It probably looks like they did it with vengence.  If you have bucks and small trees that are upright. Its best to fence the new plants untill they get larger.  The plants.  Not the bucks.  

No, never lived in a city.  I'm from the wilds of Idaho.  The bark was gone by late winter/early spring, well before the bucks were in the velvet.   The trees had just been planted the previous year, and the spindly trunks weren't yet much over an inch in diameter, so they wouldn't have been of much use as a rub.

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3 hours ago, Barms said:

Why do SOME landscapers with years of experience still do the mulch volcano?  It's indisputable that it's a major  No no but yet SOME still do.

There, I fixed that for ya.  Even though your post has nothing to do with the OP, I took the time.  You're welcome.

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oy vey....now I'm even more mixed up. not a question of when to plant but now its about if the skip laurel is a good fit for what I want it for, a privacy screen/hedge. The more I research it and whats been said here maybe its a bit too risky as its intended use. Being in the northern fringe of its hardiness zone it can be damaged from an excessively harsh winter being out in the open. Coming out of winter with the laurel all browned out and waiting till may/june to repair itself isnt appealing to me, not truly evergreen... And the more I look around I'm not seeing it except as a few specimens yet all the garden centers move it pretty well. Havent totally talked myself out of it yet because my wife and I really like it as a much more attractive option over the arborvitae everywhere. First World problems lol. Appreciate the info you guys have offered.

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30 minutes ago, Scorpio64 said:

Yanno, you can always wrap trees and shrubs in burlap for the winter.

yup. but so much for the attractive evergreen look and onto having a  30' wall or bunch of sacks of burlap in the front yard for how many months. Also gets impractcal I would think when the plants get bigger. I want a wall just a few thousand miles south of here : ).  Having said all this my wife just said to me "just do it".  Whats the worse can happen, tear out $1k in plants, go to plan B.

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On 9/4/2017 at 8:24 AM, siderman said:

oy vey....now I'm even more mixed up. not a question of when to plant but now its about if the skip laurel is a good fit for what I want it for, a privacy screen/hedge. The more I research it and whats been said here maybe its a bit too risky as its intended use. Being in the northern fringe of its hardiness zone it can be damaged from an excessively harsh winter being out in the open. Coming out of winter with the laurel all browned out and waiting till may/june to repair itself isnt appealing to me, not truly evergreen... And the more I look around I'm not seeing it except as a few specimens yet all the garden centers move it pretty well. Havent totally talked myself out of it yet because my wife and I really like it as a much more attractive option over the arborvitae everywhere. First World problems lol. Appreciate the info you guys have offered.

Deer eat different things in different areas. There are some plants that are on the top of their priority list that they will eat first in most areas and others that are highly deer resistant everywhere, but the only way to know what they are eating in you area is to look around your neighborhood. I have seen Skip laurels eaten by deer but that is normally in the most polluted deer areas.

You are also correct about Skip laurels getting "winter burn", some of the leaves will turn brown at the end of the winter/early spring - these leaves will fall off mid may or so and new growth will replace it. By mid summer you will not notice anything ever happened to it.

You would probably do best with Green Giant Arborvitae (Thuja plicata), I haven't seen them get eaten in some of the worst deer areas. Avoid Dark American Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) - these are deer food almost everywhere.

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I've decided to wait till Spring for the main plantings but soon will do a bunch of excavation and am going to plant one each of skip laurel and green giant near each other elsewhere in the yard to see how they do over the winter. If we have a bad winter I'll see how the laurel does as far as hardiness and how both do with deer. My bro lives a little south from me in Morris Plains and has a lot of skip laurel- which i didnt observe all the times i was there- and deer. He says the deer typically dont bother the laurel except for the new growth in the spring.

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On 9/11/2017 at 9:50 AM, Golf battery said:

Thuja occidentalis is the indigenousone.  Thuja dark american or nigra as its known is a different type.  That type is deer food. 

They will browse on green giant in heavily populated areas.  But not bad at all.  

'Nigra' is a cultivar of Thjua occidentalis - so Thjua occidentalis the parent to 'Nigra'. This is the same plant that that cedar shingles and shakes are made from as well as cedar mulch. They grow wild in Maine, northern NH and VT as well as Quebec and a small portion of Ontario.

 

Deer will eat anything in the worst areas, but I haven't yet seen them eat Green Giants in a substantial way, even in the worst areas. That said, we seem to loose a few more plants each year that deer didn't eat before but will now - so nothing would surprise me.

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On 9/11/2017 at 0:08 PM, siderman said:

I've decided to wait till Spring for the main plantings but soon will do a bunch of excavation and am going to plant one each of skip laurel and green giant near each other elsewhere in the yard to see how they do over the winter. If we have a bad winter I'll see how the laurel does as far as hardiness and how both do with deer. My bro lives a little south from me in Morris Plains and has a lot of skip laurel- which i didnt observe all the times i was there- and deer. He says the deer typically dont bother the laurel except for the new growth in the spring.

If you are going to plant Skip Laurels this year I would plant them soon. Most plants do best when planted in the fall, but Cherry Laurels aren't one of them. They need to root some before the winter sets in

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I guess the hybridization of nigra took out the bitter taste of its original form.  They do flush out differently.  White tips on occidentalis and light green on nigra.  Either way   Best choice is. Berberis julianne.    They die a slow bleeding death. 

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2 minutes ago, Golf battery said:

They usually browse on straight thuja occidentalis as as much as juniperus virginianica   My deer browse on my hedge of green giant.  Thuja plicata.  Western arb.  

Deer do different things in different areas. In Morris county and north I haven't seen any major damage to any of the plicata cultivars. Occidentalis on the other hand gets stripped in areas with even modest deer population. I have seen deer eat Eastern Red Cedar in bad deer areas, but the American Arbs would be long gone before that.

Again, nothing surprises me anymore about what deer will eat.

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9 minutes ago, Oakridgefirearms said:

If you are going to plant Skip Laurels this year I would plant them soon. Most plants do best when planted in the fall, but Cherry Laurels aren't one of them. They need to root some before the winter sets in

Im impressed by your knowledge.  You are correct in what you wrote.  Things that can be pricey but dont like to plant past late sept are the latest i like to plant are.  Laurels especially cherry. Southern mags.  Leylands and crapes.  

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8 minutes ago, Golf battery said:

I guess the hybridization of nigra took out the bitter taste of its original form.  They do flush out differently.  White tips on occidentalis and light green on nigra.  Either way   Best choice is. Berberis julianne.    They die a slow bleeding death. 

Barberry is one plant I've never seen deer eat...............

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