My backyard is mostly oaks (huge oaks over 100 years old) along with small oaks and laurel. My neighbors house sits far back and he has real thick cover in his front yard that the deer bed in. My other neighbor has a field that has some alfalfa (10 acres) and either corn or soybeans (50 acres) every year. The deer typically return from the fields in the morning and pass through my property on the way to my neighbors thick bedding area. It’s not uncommon for me to see 40+ deer in the mornings. My problem is that when I had more laurel, it used to hold some bigger bucks...now I’m only seeing smaller bucks with the occasional big one coming through at night looking for does. For some reason, the laurel is slowly dying off. I’d like to plant something that is fast growing, provides a good bedding cover, but also something that isn’t going to be too invasive. If I can create a good bedding area on my place, combined with the bedding on my neighbors place, I’m thinking the bigger bucks would hang around more...like they used to 10-15 years ago. I tried planting white pines (6-10” plants) but something was eating them...I’d see where they were snipped off with only a 2” stub remaining...and I had planted around 200 of them. I do have some hemlock that I planted and they are doing well, but they are slow growing and I only have about a half dozen. I guess I’m looking for seedlings that I can plant that will grow fast, but something that I can keep under control. May have to get some of those small tubes that will protect the plants until they get some size to them.