In rural areas, near farmlands and in forests, deer are the bane of a gardener's existence. The beautiful tulips planted last fall? Munched. The cultivated day lilies in brilliant shades of purple and gold? Nothing left but stalks. The young roses? Even the thorns are gone. Hostas? Clipped to the ground. Rhododendron? Winter feasting leaves nothing but a bedraggled stick.
Deer are voracious, they travel in packs, and they view gardens as their personal salad bars. Even in suburban areas, deer may pay visits, especially to leafy homes located near the greenways that follow highways and parkways. Can they be stopped?
Sometimes it seems impossible. But a few tips can minimize, if not entirely eliminate, dinnertime visits from Bambi and a score of his closest friends.
Deer Resistant Plant Choice and Location Can Protect Gardens from Deer
It only seems that deer eat everything in sight. In point of fact, they are pickier than that. Deer eat cultivated day-lilies, but not the wild (common orange) variety. They like tulips but don't touch daffodils. They eat rhododendrons in winter, but not in summer.
So the first plan of attack: Plant deer-resistant plants (You can find a list in many gardening books). Other techniques to try include surrounding plants they do eat (the cultivated day lilies) with plants they don't want (the wild variety) in the hope that they'll sniff around and, unimpressed at the offerings they see first, wander away. Similarly, some varieties of plants such as azaleas and rhododendron may be more or less attractive to deer than others.
For deer favorites such as tulips and hostas, plant right near a house or a well-used area that gets a lot of people and pet traffic. Unless a deer is particularly hungry, it will avoid high-traffic areas.
Physical Barriers Can Protect Plants From Deer
Deer netting is another choice. Deer netting is made of fine filament that the deer can't see, and hence, can't jump over. And they certainly can't chew through it.
Deer won't touch rhododendron in spring, summer and fall when there is too much else to eat that they prefer, but in winter, they can turn a young shrub into little more than a shriveled twig. Mature rhododendrons planted near high traffic areas are less vulnerable than young plants, especially those far away from a house or traffic flow. Netting thrown over the whole plant can keep vulnerable young shrubs safe.
Using Deer Repellents to Protect Gardens from Deer
Another strategy is to use repellents. Bobcat and other predator urines are available for sale in gardening and farm supply stores. In theory, prey animals such as deer avoid areas that are heavily marked by predators. However, urine can wash away; I've seen chipmunks sitting right on top of a railroad tie I treated with bobcat urine, happily munching on the big, fat, perfectly ripe tomato I was planning to pick that day. You can prevent the urine from washing away so quickly by soaking a cotton ball in it, then putting the cotton inside a film cannister or some other small plastic container in which holes have been punched or cut. Spread the canisters around the plants that need protection. The small holes you've punched will let the scent of the urine escape; the plastic container will keep most of the urine from washing away.
A product that has received a lot of word of mouth in deer country is Milorganite, a 5-2-0 fertilizer (containing nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium in those percentages) with 4 percent iron. It is a fertilizer made from Milwaukee sewage. While Milorganite is marketed as a fertilizer, not a deer repellent, research at Berry College has shown it to be effective as a deer repellent. Word of mouth in my rural mountain community led me to try it in an effort to save my deer-munched roses. After seeing deer insouciantly chewing on my personally-prized blossoms, I spread Milorganite over the bed. And that was the end of the problem.
Another effective deer repellent product is Deer Scram (ingredients include meat meal, dried blood, garlic, pepper, and cloves). However, some gardeners find that after a while, deer become inured to the smell of the repellent (or it wears off), so be sure to reapply. Another strategy is to rotate repellents.
Gardeners who also maintain vegetable gardens have a whole other challenge on their hands. For them, a deer fence may be the only hope of having anything left to eat at the end of the harvest. Keeping deer out isn't easy, but it can be done. Vigilance, rotating products,and, if necessary, putting up physical barriers in certain seasons can help keep your garden, if not entirely deer-proof, then at least unattractive to these hungry and persistent visitors.
Karen Berger grows roses, tulips, hostas, and rhododendron on a deer-inhabited mountain in Massachusetts.
Karen Berger - Karen Berger is the author of 15 books. Please click on her name to read her full bio.
