Have any of you experimented with planting thorny things like raspberries or gooseberries under your fruit trees? My peaches and pears are constantly stolen by groundhogs before they ripen, and I’m wondering if this might reduce that.
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I have never personally attempted that but I will tell you that rabbits and deer don’t seem to be bothered enough by thorns to not eat my thorny plants.
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In my experience, dense thorny plants can deter deer, but can also provide cover for rodents, which can increase rodent activity in an area.
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Not thorny enough!
Try Sea Buckthorn (Sea Berry), Siberian Pea Shrub, or maybe some Cornel blackberries, I forgot the name of them, giant berries and giant thorns, and once established they’re apparently good with being cut back yearly, although that doesn’t make sense to me they need to be cut every other year, I thought.
Here’s my attempts to protect the roots of my persimmon tree from the woodchucks who’s den I dug into while planting it. It’s very thorny, hillside Hawthorn, packed all around the hole, with the bases of the branches evenly spaced and sticking above ground. There’s no casually digging through that!
She seems to be a happy camper, although I don’t have new pics from my father yet. An American persimmon that gives wonderful and relatively large fruit even without a pollinator.
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