Propagate by Layering
Rooting a still-attached stem in a pot beside the mother plant, then cutting it free.
Stop Deer With Two Short Fences Instead of One Tall One
Deer can clear eight feet of height or a long horizontal gap — but not both at once, and their depth perception is poor. Two 4-foot fences set 4 feet apart read as an unjudgeable obstacle, and they won't attempt the jump.
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The Problem
A deer clears a six-foot fence without breaking stride, so protecting a garden the brute-force way means eight feet of fencing — expensive, ugly, and a permitting headache in plenty of places. Meanwhile the orchard keeps getting eaten.
The Technique
Fence the deer's eyes instead of its legs.
- Build a fence just 4 feet tall around the garden.
- Build a second 4-foot fence, parallel to the first, 4 feet outside it.
That's the whole system — an old-school, hand-built double fence. It works because of two facts about deer:
- They can jump high, or far, but not both at the same time. Clearing the first fence would land them inside a 4-foot corridor with no room to gather another jump.
- Their depth perception is terrible — for a human it would be like judging the gap with one eye covered. Two fence lines close together read as one deep, unjudgeable obstacle, and deer don't attempt jumps they can't judge.
Pro tip: The corridor between the fences isn't wasted ground — it's a natural spot for compost bins, equipment storage, or bramble rows. And because neither fence is doing structural battle with a jumping deer, both can be light construction: posts and wire mesh, not stockade.
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