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Whitetail Winter Cover Block (14 Plants) | Spring 2027
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$339.99
Regular price
$389.96
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Ripening
Will it finish before your first hard freeze?
Check it on the Ripening Map (opens in a new tab)Evergreen cover for whitetail in deep snow, with browse along the edge. Ponderosa pine and Rocky Mountain juniper for thermal and hiding cover, plus chokecherry and serviceberry to browse.
| What you get | 14 plants: Ponderosa Pine (3, 7-15 in.), Rocky Mountain Juniper (3, 8-15 in.), Chokecherry (3, 3-5 ft.), Serviceberry (5, 2-3 ft.). Bare root, shipped or picked up in Missoula in spring 2027, roots wrapped in moist sawdust. Guaranteed to bud out. |
|---|---|
| Hardy to | Zone 2 (winters to about -50°F). Check your spot with our cold hardiness calculator. |
| Why these | Whitetail pick cover over food once snow gets deep (about 16 in. or more). Wyoming rates Rocky Mountain juniper excellent hiding and thermal cover. Serviceberry gives whitetail adequate nutrition in all seasons in the Black Hills, and chokecherry is valuable year-round food and cover on the plains. |
| Pollination | Serviceberry is self-fertile. Chokecherry sets fruit better with several plants together. |
Junipers come as separate male and female plants, and these are seedlings, so the sex of each one is unknown until it blooms. Plant them all together to give yourself the best odds of both.
How to Plant for Winter
Minnesota DNR recommends keeping 10 to 20% of a property in conifer winter cover with a browse strip about 50 ft. wide along the edges. Plant the pines and junipers in a block on the north or west side of your best ground. I'd put the junipers in their own clump at the far end, with the pines between them and everything else, and the chokecherry and serviceberry along the pine side's sunny edge. That keeps the junipers as far as you can from the serviceberry and from any orchard. The conifers start small and take years to make cover, so start them early.
Keep junipers away from your fruit. Rocky Mountain juniper hosts cedar-apple rust and its cousin rusts, which also hit crabs, hawthorn, serviceberry, pears and mountain ash. University of Minnesota Extension says keeping junipers a few hundred yards away cuts the problem down, though spores can travel farther.
Keep livestock away from chokecherry. The leaves, bark, stems and pits are toxic to livestock, especially cattle and sheep, and wilted leaves are the worst.
Protect Them
Deer, elk and moose browse young plants hard, and bucks rub trunks in fall. Cage each tree until it's out of reach: a welded-wire cage about 5 ft. tall and 3 ft. across works for deer. Where elk come through, MSU recommends an 8 ft. fence with a top rail. Trunk tubes alone won't stop rubs. Water with drip the first couple of summers.
Is Planting This Baiting?
Growing plants is habitat work. Rules on fruit or nuts you pick, move or pile up vary by state, so check your state's hunting regs before you hunt over it.
For the full how-to (why these plants work, spacing, protection and timing), read our whitetail deer orchard guide.
See our other wildlife bundles on the wildlife orchard bundles page.
Photos: white-tailed deer by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
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