I just planted this spring at the beginning of April a row of 6 slender silhouette sweetgums. They were bare-root and they took a long time to come to life. It's only been about a month that they started budding, and the leaves they have are all tightly clustered still from their buds and haven't really fully emerged or grown.
I'd read online in several places that deer don't like sweetgums and leave them alone. Well, not this deer, because a young deer--I know because I saw him leaving the yard right after he did it--nibbled about 80% to 90% of the leaves off, including the top such that there's just a green nub left there. So what I've got is a 3- to 4-foot stick coming out of the ground left that's got about 10% to 20% of its leaves left.
I'm super upset because it's a row of six identical trees evenly spaced, so replacing it, or even if it survives, it might end up looking not identical to the rest anymore.
By the way, oddly enough, because a neighbor mentioned a problem with deer and his trees this year, I just ordered deer repellant to spray on the trees this morning, like I literally was outside and the trees were all fine, came inside and ordered the deer repellant, looked out the window and saw two young deer leaving the yard, and then looked out my back window and saw that one of them had eaten most of the foliage off of one of my new slender silhouette sweetgums. How's that for irony-- deer munching on a tree that isn't supposed to be liked by deer to be munched on at the exact moment I'm ordering deer repellant spray for that very tree and its five sisters just to be on the safe side?
