Caged Hazel

Two year-old hazel, caged for winter. I lost half of my ten hazels last winter, and all ten of their predecessors. I don't understand, because deer are supposed to think they taste awful. I'm not taking any chances with the rabbits and mice this year. Notice the lid. The bit of silver immediately above is the caged Rabella.

Winterizing The Rabella

Mellow late-October afternoon, first-season espaliered Rabella apple on dwarfing rootstock. Two three by three-and-a-half foot sheets of half-inch hardware cloth, spread with a piece of light lumber and stitched together with baling wire. Tried to anchor the cage with staples made from wire clothes hangers, but couldn't get a good grip on the ground. Scraped a groove with a garden trowel, and buried the bottom with dirt from a harvested potato tower to exclude mice.

Winterizing My Apple Trees

Two apple trees, planted about a yard apart. "Freedom" on the left and "Liberty" on the right, purchased from St. Lawrence Nursery in Pottsdam, NY. The names claim freedom and liberty from disease. A couple of big, permaculture orchards I know have had good luck with them. They are not on dwarfing rootstock, and I'm expecting to have to prune them to keep them at a scale that's reasonable for their site. I plan to graft branches between them, Freedom to Liberty, to form a ladder, and train other branches to a single goblet shape.

The top photo shows the trunks wrapped with "Tree Wrap," two inch-wide paper, to protect the bark from winter cold and temperature changes. In the bottom photo, they're caged with hardware cloth to keep snow-tunneling mice from gnawing them to death.

I will do something similar with my hazel bushes, whose predecessors were victims of predator bunnies, and an espaliered Rabella apple, as well as several more established, but still young fruit trees.