Is Japanese Maple deer resistant?

Rated only Seldom Damaged, but deer will browse a young one within reach even though they leave mature trees alone. Protect the first few years. Beyond that the main risks are leaf scorch from afternoon sun and drying wind, and verticillium wilt in wet heavy soil. Site it in morning sun with shelter, and never let it sit waterlogged.

Do deer eat Japanese maples?

Sometimes, while they can reach it. Rutgers rates Acer palmatum Seldom Severely Damaged, B, and NC State: "This tree is mildly resistant to damage by deer." The tier and the sentence describe a mature tree; a young one at 3 feet, all soft new leaf within reach, is browsed in gardens where the same tree at 15 feet is not, and the smooth trunk of a young maple is exactly what a buck rubs in October.

Where it grows

NC State: zones 5a to 8b, 15 to 25 feet, in dappled sunlight, spring flowers nobody plants it for, tolerant of drought once established. The listed problem is "Weedy," meaning seedlings, and the real ones are leaf scorch from afternoon sun and drying wind, and verticillium wilt in wet heavy soil. Morning sun, shelter and drainage are the whole prescription.

Protecting Japanese maples

A cage or a wrap for the first three or four winters and a trunk guard for the first several falls, until the canopy is above reach and the bark has roughened. After that, nothing, and the tree is one of the few ornamental trees deer leave alone at every size.

If it is browsed

Browsed shoots regrow the same season and the tree loses a year of shape, which on a plant grown for its shape matters more than on most. A trunk girdled by rub is finished. The order of protection is guard first, cage second.