Appreciation: Aceretum in late spring

Discussion in 'Maples' started by emery, Jun 4, 2014.

  1. emery

    emery Renowned Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    I took advantage of a brief moment of sunlight to grab a panorama of the aceretum and paths, with the meadow growing in. By now the daisies, orchids and wild geraniums are out, but here it's buttercup, sorrel and clover mostly. And grass! :) The maples almost take a back seat to the meadow for a while. This is facing east towards the more fully planted part, in about the middle of the aceretum.

    I enjoy this part of the garden, and this time of year, very much.
     

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  2. ROEBUK

    ROEBUK Generous Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    Emery... I could quite easily sit there all day and just watch the world go by!!!!!!
    That must be really peaceful for you, on a side note do you have problems with Roe deer at all in your region?
     
  3. emery

    emery Renowned Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    Let's just say, with a name like "Roebuck" you would require a certificate of anthropomorphism to get an invite! :)

    Seriously they're a tremendous problem and anything that isn't protected with chicken wire will be eaten. Even with the protections they get over the top more often than I'd like. We also have large deer, I think white tail, and the lowing of the bucks in rut is a striking sound at night in the fall. The big deer do damage also but are a bit more shy to come into the garden; although I have caught them mowing down an entire bed of roses! We have a lot of boar also but for the time being their digging hasn't been around any of my plantings. (knock on wood).

    As for peaceful, it really is that: we're at the end of a dead end road, with fields surrounded by a very large forest. But I'm usually far too busy in the garden to watch the world go by!!

    cheers,

    -E
     
  4. ROEBUK

    ROEBUK Generous Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    Let me just say that i have more than enough deer over here to keep me more than busy without going accross the channel to try and keep another deer population in check:)

    Have spent many years protecting various woodlands and forestry commision plantings from roe deer and have seen the total devistation they can cause on young sitka spruce plantations and broad leaf woodlands, gardens parks etc.

    But just looking at your area one can almost tell immediately that you would have deer coming out in the early morning and dusk.Everthing is there for them good cover young trees good browsing and most important good easy escape routes if bothered. The other deer you describe will be Fallow they have the throaty grunt during the rut, plus you will also have some red deer in your area.

    Hope you have a very large piece of wood to knock on if the four legged porcine rotivators invade your area, these will do serious serious damage!!!

    Even without the deer still a great spot to live in and cultivate your Acers, you are blessed with a beautiful area of land.
     
  5. emery

    emery Renowned Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    It sounds like you're an expert, maybe you can give me some tips? As you know it's a very difficult and ongoing problem. I hate the way the chicken wire looks, and it complicates maintenance too. I've considered fencing the entire top fields, but that would be about 10 acres to fence, and very expensive, unfortunately there are other life-areas that would need that kind of money first.

    One of the issues is that we're on the edge of a large hunting ground, but the kill is limited and the population has exploded during the last few years. Also boar is more popular as game. I don't hunt personally, but we do our best to get along with the hunters, who can be good or not so good neighbours depending on how you get along.

    Boar do tremendous damage down the hill. More JCB than rotovator... For one reason or another they rarely come as far uphill as the aceretum, although they do come into the orchard for windfall. I think they've learned to shake the trees honestly! Speaking of which, first cherries are in, and I think I'll go and pick some. :)

    -E
     
  6. emery

    emery Renowned Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    This will really show you the problem.

    - where the boar like to dig
    - towards the garden from lower field
    - another angle towards the house and garden
    - civilization! (I like lawns too.)

    This whole area, i.e. "upper field", all the way around to in back of the aceretum, would have to be fenced in order to provide protection from the deer...
     

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    Last edited: Jun 8, 2014
  7. ROEBUK

    ROEBUK Generous Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    Emery pic 1 lower field prime area for deer and pigs, if a local pest controller can't get anything out of there for you he doesn't deserve to hold a firearm certificate!!!!

    Will post a more detailed sollution for you tomorrow which might help you in some way, having to go out now. BTW what's the very large tree in pic 4 please can't get a good luck at the leaves.
     
  8. emery

    emery Renowned Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    Heh, this is France, I'm not sure we have pest controllers, (although perhaps we could consider hunters that way!). My old neighbour has a room full of shotguns, which keeps burglars away pretty effectively, I wonder if he has any licenses for any of them. :)

    The tree is a Tilia of some sort, possibly cordata. There were 3 which we think were planted when the house was built either 300 or 400 years ago (depending on section). Sadly the largest was lost in the storm of 1999. In 1992 when we bought the property every burnable tree had been cut down, except these 3 limes! I've taken out stumps of enormous cherries and oaks, used for heating.
     
  9. ROEBUK

    ROEBUK Generous Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    Emery Here we go!!! Firstly i am looking at this from a point of view that you as a local land owner with a small area of land which may or may not have one or two species of native deer on your property which you assume will in the future cause extensive damage to your ornamental trees and surrounding crops/plantings.Therefore you are looking for someone with extensive knowledge of crop protection and deer culling,also they must have the correct training and posess all the relevent and legal documentation which enables them to carry out said practice.What they must first do is carry out a 3/4 day extensive walk and watch and of your land to assess basically how many deer you have on your ground , what species of deer/pigs and where they are coming from and where do they go to.Roe deer in paticular are very territorial and you will probably have quite a few dominat bucks in the area these in turn will attract the does, each buck will usually control around a square mile of land for his own territory. Roe deer are not a herd deer as say the reds and fallow are, also you will get the immature young bucks who have yet to establish there own ground and remain on the edges of the older bucks territories. Your cull operative will be looking for deer slots(hoof prints) droppings, and thrashing of young trees this is the older buck marking his territory using his antlers to scrape the bark off young trees (Acers will do nicely) and excrete a hormone release from the base coronets of his antlers. All deer use a network of footpaths which they create in the woodlands so this enables them to get from point A (their home) to point B (food) safely and back again with out been seen or disturbed. Once he has established all of the above information he will then offer you a sollution of the correct way of erradicating your problem, dependent on the time of year and which sex is in legal season to be culled you would either take out the bucks which is actually now, the does will be at the stage of just dropping their young about this time.What you have to realise is a deers main purpose in life is to spread it's gene pool constantly so by removing either the bucks the does will move on to find suitable mature bucks to mate with , and vice versa remove the does and your mature bucks will have to move on to new ground, this way you are able to keep a balanced deer population in check. They will soon learn and work out that if they venture into certain areas there is a good chance something untowards will happen to them and they will stay clear!!!

    The only other sollution you have already mentioned is the deer fencing very reliable but very expensive, just looking at your areas i don't think you would have much change out of £15.000+. Another option would be to get the deer to pay for the cost of the fencing, now we enter an area which you may not like but it's a fact of life that if someone owns land that holds a good proportion of what we call trophy class deer there is a 100% certainty that trophy hunters will pay serious money for the chance of a medal class head!!! Roe deer bucks come in three classes Gold Silver Bronze and for them to acheive this their head and antlers must weigh over a certain weight, starting at 390g and over for bronze then 480g and over for gold and a general pay scale for the hunter starts at £2.00 per gram!!! plus a daily stalking rate and if he wants the carcass you charge the body weight at whatever the game market rate is at the time.Even the wild boar have value, a good big tusker can reach five hundred to a thousand pound.

    Your best course of action would be to get in touch with the local shooting club and see if someone could be of assisstance to you, there will be a national organised body which regulates all shoting related matters in france i don't think for a moment that it will be a free for all in france and there will be a legaslative body of professionals who will assist. Please do not get a local with a shotgun to help,this is highly illegal to shoot deer with said gun (UK law) and morally unforgiveable and cruel. We has hunters/cullers/cotrollers etc have a duty to despatch quickly and cleanly any large living beast any thing else totally inconceiveable to me.
     
  10. ROEBUK

    ROEBUK Generous Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    Actually forgot to say hope this helps in some way for you. Also if you have a very powerful lamp you could go down into your field at night walk round slowly and just shine it around your land and look for the reflective eye bounce back . Deer will freeze motionless when you do this to them, totally harmless and it let's you know if anything is down there.

    Regards Roebuk
     
  11. emery

    emery Renowned Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    Sorry, I replied in some length earlier but lost the window... One disadvantage of typing directly into a browser-based forum... Anyway here we go again.

    Thanks so much for the comprehensive reply! Very helpful and interesting, I certainly didn't know about the territoriality of the bucks. We do hear them barking and squabbling throughout the year. And indeed, we certainly see the eyes at night, with the big flashlight! Quite spooky. The dog likes to see them off, and often spends the dusk hours sitting alertly on the lawn, listening for telltale sounds. He's a Golden Retriever and so too slow to catch anyone, and too unadventurous to go far into the woods. (There are no cars here, essentially).

    The issue of reducing the population is a sensitive one. We are smack in the middle of the Ecouves forest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forêt_d'Écouves), a very large wood split into different domains. Our land is bordered by a large private (commercial) hunt, with another smaller private hunt a couple of kms to the north. But every inch of land, including ours, is hunted, mostly by locals of various stripes. Any land that's not hunted will be poached (everybody knows who the poachers are too). And it's very important to stay on good terms with the local commercial concerns, who in exchange for being a good neighbor provide quite a bit for the table, and allow us free use (for mushrooming mostly) of what is otherwise private and guarded property.

    I believe that the population control in the forest comes under the aegis of the ONF (forestry commission), who manage the foret d'ecouves globally. The hunting is regulated -- there are "rings" corresponding to animals -- with the numbers determined yearly. I don't know that there is any such thing as private culling here in France.

    I think hunting practice in France is probably pretty cruel by British standards, although I know nothing about the guns involved. Remember we still have fox hunting here, and "chasse a courre", on horseback with packs of dogs (no guns) is very popular, for roe deer as well as pigs and other game...

    Thanks again, and cheers!

    -E
     
  12. maplesandpaws

    maplesandpaws Active Member

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    Emery, other than the deer problem, it looks like you have a lovely slice of heaven there! Out of curiousity, how large is your property?
     
  13. emery

    emery Renowned Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    Thanks Andrea! It's a good place for maples and dogs, that's for sure. :) Our farm is 27+ acres, not so big compared to some but big enough to be a PITA to care for. Originally the farm was over 100 acres but French inheritance laws make it very difficult to keep parcels like this together over the long term.

    -E
     

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