I'm growing a small backyard potted-tree nursery (~20 trees from seedlings to <1in. saplings at this point). I recently moved to a new house, not very far but far enough where the deer browse has increased significantly. Unsurprisingly, the tree nursery has suffered severely every night since the trees were moved to the yard in this new location.

Autumn is upon is and some of these trees' leafs were already turning colors and drying up. After just two nights in the new location, many of the trees have lost most of their leafs to deer. Thankfully the deers are not eating all the buds, mostly just leafs, though they have chomped the terminal stem of an apple tree...

What's the best thing I can do to protect these trees at this point?

I realize in this new location I will need deer control - I plan on putting up a steel post deer fence ASAP around the tree nursery and in the long run putting up a wood fence and/or living fence around the whole yard. With a fence up I also plan to upgrade the tree nursery, planting trees out of pots to grow out in beds before bare root transplanting, and setting up air pruning beds for seedlings. In the mean time what can I do...just put the steel fence up ASAP?

Another idea is to move the trees into a garage which gets some western light but very little. While living in a garage is not a long-term solution, my thinking is the trees are already losing leafs (from seasonality and more rapidly from deer browse) so being in the garage is not all bad and regulates temperature; in the mean time I can setup a fenced area for them. If I went the garage route, should I move the trees back out as soon as I have a fence up, or wait until spring to move them out (I'd think the latter - wait until spring to bring them out)?

The trees in question are:

• Hazelnut
• Elderberry
• Apple
• Pear
• Black currant
• Linden
• Lilac

Hardiness Zone is: 5