The early season snow has put a beautiful blanket on the ground that should last us all the way till spring. The light snow was easy to move until many areas picked up some rain. Not enough rain to wash the snow away, but just enough to get the snow wet and pack it down. As the below freezing temperatures will continue this weekend and next week, that wet snow will turn into a hard crust on the ground, almost ice like. This is great for sleigh riding as it makes the hills even faster, but this presents a problem for gardeners. 

With this hard crust down on the ground so early in the winter season, your neighborhood deer will be taking a much closer look at your shrubs as a potential food source. When the snow cover gets too hard to scratch through for the deer, they will instead start eating your shrubs much sooner and more often. The reason for this is that the hard crust on the ground takes too much effort to dig through for what little grass may be below. The deer would have to expend more calories getting to the grass than the grass itself would provide for them. This problem usually occurs, but much later in the winter season. Being that we are not even to Christmas yet means roughly three months of deer looking to browse instead of graze. It is a little too late to put fencing up as the ground has frozen in most spots, but if you can get posts in the ground, I would advise you to do it. 

One thing that can be done this weekend is to wrap any evergreens with burlap to protect them from the deer. One single layer wrapped all around the bush, fastened with safety pins will be enough to keep the deer from eating the leaves or needles. Repellent sprays and liquids are not as effective this time of year when it is so cold because they need to dry on the leaves or needles or your evergreens before the liquid freezes. So, you can only apply on days that get above freezing. Your evergreens are the most vulnerable this time of year because the deer are just looking for something to fill their bellies for these cold nights. 

If you feed the deer, which many do, it will increase your problem, because if you miss even one night without putting out food the deer will look around and see the salad bar out for them instead in the form of your shrubs. Your deciduous shrubs won't really be affected by the deer with this problem of icy snow on the ground. Deciduous shrubs usually get nipped in late February and early March when deer need to get live chlorophyll back into their digestive system. At that time of year, they will eat small branches and buds off your deciduous trees and shrubs to get the live chlorophyll that lies just below the bark in the cambium layer (that green layer you see when you scratch the bark). They don't need a whole lot, but since the branches are so small they consume a lot of them in the process. With the icy snow on the ground now, the deer are just looking for food and any evergreen will do, including pine and spruce. Pine, spruce and even juniper, which are the deer's least favorite foods could get eaten if the snow continues like this through the winter. 

So, even if you have never had a deer problem before, just beware that this year could be your time. But look on the bright side, the Winter Solstice occurs this Sunday, December 21 at precisely 10:03 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, marking the shortest day and longest night, and the official start of winter and after that the daylight hours will start to get longer again. Just three more months until spring, it will be here before you know it.