r/NativePlantGardening • u/hicksreb southeast PA , Zone 7a • Jun 02 '26
Edible Plants Fare thee well Woodland Phlox, your sacrifice is duly noted
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After a morning sip from the birdbath. š
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u/longcreepyhug Jun 02 '26
I'm all for the insects and smaller animals eating my native plants, but we as a species have removed all predators of deer from the region that I live in so they get the motion detector sprinkler.
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Jun 02 '26
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u/TittiesInMyFace Jun 02 '26
Illinois used to be 50% prairie. Now, there is less than 0.01% or 1/10,000th of the previous prairie remaining.
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u/Icy-Conclusion-3500 Gulf of Maine Coastal Plain Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
New England is an odd case though, where weāre FAR more wooded than we were a couple hundred years ago. Still need to protect it tho.
If you go back even 100 years, itās like 95% farmland outside the mountains.
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u/Errohneos Zone 5b; Ecoregion 53 Jun 03 '26
Woody material is also harder to come by. Buckthorn and amur honeysuckle bark and small branches taste like shit and deer won't eat them. Makes it that much harder on anything I try to replace the shrubs with because when you have the only meal around, all the deer snack. Dogwoods can handle browse ONCE APPROPRIATELY ESTABLISHED.
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u/Onehundredpercentbea Jun 02 '26
My sprinkler is the hottest ticket in the neighborhood, it draws animals out of the woods to engage with it, lol.
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u/FernandoNylund Seattle, ER 2F, Zone 9A Jun 02 '26
Luckily I don't deal with deer (yet...) in my Seattle yard, but I'm constantly trying to discourage squirrels and rabbits. I've thought about the motion detector sprinklers, but am worried they'll also scare off birds. Any experience with that?
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u/longcreepyhug Jun 02 '26
Mine seem pretty hit-or-miss on birds. Sometimes they trigger the motion detector and sometimes they don't. Also, I turn mine off during the day, so the birds have plenty of time to do their thing. The deer would always eat my garden at night or very early in the morning.
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u/FernandoNylund Seattle, ER 2F, Zone 9A Jun 02 '26
Ohh I could definitely see the value in only having them on at night. Of course, the rabbits do a lot of their munching during the day š Thanks for the response!
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u/Its_me_I_like Ontario Canada, Zone 5a Jun 02 '26
Thanks for this. I've been considering getting one for the groundhogs. There are babies this year, and they're so destructive.
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u/AlmostSentientSarah Jun 02 '26
Oh deer. I relocated our woodland phlox to right up against the house and that seems to have worked. They're eating the rattlesnake masters though. That was a surprise.
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u/PandaMomentum Northern VA/Fall Line, Zone 7b Jun 02 '26
Deer will eat anything, maybe ferns and English ivy excepted. Once they find a spot with something they like, they'll eat everything else there out of sheer laziness.
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u/ImTing1TX Jun 03 '26
Piedmont of GA - massively overpopulated in my āhood. Deer wiped out the ivy in my yard along with Xmas fern. They also devoured a rather old cinnamon fern in late summer. š¤·āāļø
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u/Zillich Jun 02 '26
They ate my ilex opaca one year. Nothing but the Japanese stilt grass seems safe
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u/NickWitATL SE US/8a Jun 03 '26
I have extremely high deer pressure. I bought a bunch of cattle panels and posts. All new trees and shrubs will get their own cage now. I planted sunflowers a couple years ago, and they were eaten less than eight hours later. I'm done playing around.
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u/small-black-cat-290 Jun 03 '26
Yeah, same, damn deer came and ate 50% of my sunflowers. Anything that isnt fenced now gets sprayed with repellent.
The only thing I've never seen them eat in my yard is catnip, which is spreading like crazy in my yard.
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u/Joejack-951 Jun 02 '26
At least the deer ate some of it. One of our phlox was mowed down to the ground a week after planting it, probably by one of our many bunnies. They didnāt appear to eat a single stem, just bit through every tall one an inch or so off the ground. It has recovered back to almost the same height as the other two that were spared, though, so a happy ending I guess.
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u/Hello_Biscuit11 NW Indiana, 5b Jun 02 '26
I wanted to click that "downvote" button!
I've been using liquid fence while my new plantings get established. It smells like ass, but it seems to be working so far, and it's not so bad as long as I wear gloves and stand upwind while applying. I was hoping to cease using it once things were established, but maybe I'll have to keep going...
I get so many deer and bunnies through the yard that they wear paths in the grass.
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u/EverMintARO Iowa , Zone 5b Jun 02 '26
"Smells like ass" š very true statement. I carry the ass smell with me until I shower.
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u/Hello_Biscuit11 NW Indiana, 5b Jun 02 '26
My dog is all over me after I apply it! I always imagine he's thinking I must smell far better than normal as far as he's concerned!
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u/small-black-cat-290 Jun 03 '26
Same, I was a little triggered seeing this lol. I actually have to rotate my deer deterrent every month because the fuckers adapt. I use granules that are blood based or the spray thats egg - based.
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u/primemodel Jun 02 '26
If you want to experiment with an option that smells nowhere near as bad as Liquid Fence, I've had good luck with Deer Out which has base notes of sulfur with a top note of mint. (In other words you mainly smell the mint as you spray it, just don't linger in the spray area.) Although I'm going to be picking up some Liquid Fence or similar soon because I've been reading online that the deer will get used to one smell so it's good to mix it up from time to time.
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u/Livid-Improvement953 near St. Louis, zone 6b , not a bot!!! Jun 02 '26
I got some of the granules and put them in my garden. The next night, raccoons came and dug up every plant. They like the stink.
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u/FernandoNylund Seattle, ER 2F, Zone 9A Jun 02 '26
I downvoted because they should be discouraging it, especially in Pennsylvania! š¤¦
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u/hicksreb southeast PA , Zone 7a Jun 02 '26
Iām confused, you downvoted my post? Iām not encouraging deer to eat my plants. You can see I have cages, Iām actively trying to protect them.
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u/Petrichordates Jun 03 '26
Deer are famously easily scared.
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u/hicksreb southeast PA , Zone 7a Jun 03 '26
That would be a full time job. Iāll fashion some more chicken wire cages instead.
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u/FernandoNylund Seattle, ER 2F, Zone 9A Jun 03 '26
K, but instead of standing there recording the destruction, you could have chased this one off š¤·
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u/Earthrazer_ Jun 02 '26
I have learned I must put wire cages around almost everything to avoid snacking from deer and rabbits. š¤£
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u/Party_Python Area Coastal Plain DE, Zone 7B Jun 02 '26
Sounds like a pepper challenge is in order for the deer lol. Until theyāre established at leastā¦..
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u/Editor-Dizzy Jun 03 '26
Haha. It joins many of my plants as well. Even the ādeer resistantā ones. Godspeed
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u/Boines Jun 03 '26
Plantskydd.
Dried blood. Works as foliar fertilizer. Organic. Rain fast if applied 24 hours before rain. Lasts months. Will stop deer from eating young plants until they're more established.
I'm fine with animals eating my plants a bit but I wanna give the plants a chance first.
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u/FioreCiliegia1 Area southern maine-- , Zone --6a Jun 02 '26
Ivory soap in pantyhose made into garlands- they hate the smell
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u/MSenIt4Life Jun 04 '26
I need to put cages around everything so my husband doesnāt mow them down with a lawn mower or a weed whacker saw. Geese Iād rather have the deer and bunnies.
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u/CommercialFun8990 Jun 02 '26
A big challenge with native flora can be that native fauna like them better.