I have game cam pics of the deer standing on their hind legs to eat the tops off of trees in 5' tree tubes. I also have pics of them knocking down the tubes.
I have also set little barbed wire fence enclosures around my trees. It works well, but it utilizes a lot of materials AND it is a pain to climb through to weed or prune the trees.
I finally tried the patented GEHAJAKE Elevated Hoops System (as shown on some of the trees in his pic).
It works very well for the tree-deer situation on my farm. I give it two thumbs up!
(I have a $35 t-post puller from Tractor Supply that works superbly. When the trees finally grow out above the deer browsing height, it will be quite easy to remove the hoops and posts, and then re-use them on any new plantings.)
For my fruit trees I just made round hoops out of woven wire and set them around them, I also raised mine up so that I can mow under and around the plant, and a little piece of drain tile around the base to keep the rabbits from chewing on them. Ill see if I can find a picture.
Turn the power to the electric fence off. Put a piece of tin foil on it, and smear some Peanut Butter on the tinfoil. Turn the fence back on. The deer will lick the tinfoil and won't like it a bit.....
The key to fence away deer is to place 2 rows of fence about 24" apart. If you want to try a low wire perimeter, you should have better success with 2 rows of wire.
gehajake, My in-laws had a terrible problem with deer eating their landscaping until an old farmer told them to put a single strand of electric fence about 6 inches off the ground. I doubted that would work myself but 4 years later and they no longer have any problems with deer. It sounds crazy I know but you learn something new everyday. For fruit trees at the cabin I cut 10 foot sections of 2x4 fencing wire, drove 2 T post on opposite sides of each tree and formed a circle around each tied to the T posts about 10 inches off the ground to bush hog. I’ve had no problems with deer since I put them up last summer. The T post idea came from someone on here but I can’t remember who did it, maybe RAH?