THE LAZY BERKSHIRE GARDENER: Week of November 12, 2026

The weather is turning colder this next weekend. Here is your second reminder to install temporary burlap fencing or hardware cloth shields around your youngest and most susceptible landscape plants. Thanks, Lazy Berkshire Gardener, but how do I know what’s susceptible? First, protect evergreens where deer will likely stop in for a nibble come February. Create simple boundaries with burlap stapled to wood stakes. These boundary fences will allow sunlight but keep deer and rabbits out. Also, protect young fruit trees planted in the last few years. For fruit trees or other young trees and shrubs with thin bark layers, create simple wraps of hardware cloth that you can push into the soil around the plant by a few inches. Cut the cloth strips about 24 inches tall but short enough to encircle the trunk and leave a small two-inch radial gap between fence and trunk. The gap is far enough to prevent gnawing by rodents. The height will protect the plant in up to two feet of snow.

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