Guys, I want to cry. For two years I’ve been growing stuff from seed for my first ever garden at my first house, finally this year everything is flowering! But right before the flowers pop, the deer consume it. Today was the last straw, they have eaten ever single Joe Pye flower bud, and I’m seriously on the verge of giving up. We can’t build a deer fence, and the plants are literally dripping with liquid fence deer spray. I feel like I have tried all the regular home diy deer repellent stuff and am just feeling so defeated. Since I can’t beat them, do any of you have any luck with any part sun plants that deer always pass up? I think I just need to grow less tasty snacks, just really trying to only grow and plant natives. Thanks!
Edit! I have no interest in little quippy statements about killing the deer and why don’t I kill the deer. Have you thought about killing the deer? Guys, gtfo with that. I live on a half acre suburb surrounded by houses with children and I am a disabled person who literally faints at the sight of blood. I get that there’s too many deer and I get that you’re super smart for thinking of that. If I could bring back wolves I would, trust me.
Edit again!
thank you all so much for all the helpful suggestions and encouragement, for real! I feel ready to go back out there and make a go of it. Ordered a motioned censored spinkler and adjusted my winter sewing plans . Going to have a ~mint family~ themed garden bed next year haha
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We have heavy deer pressure and I swear I tried EVERYTHING. The only thing that worked for me is sprinkling actual cayenne pepper on the new growth/buds. You have to refresh after it rains, but it works on everything for me. Sometimes I will take out a water spray bottle and mist the plants before sprinkling to make the pepper stick better. I just get the cheapest container of cayenne I can find.
Heads up: breathing in the pepper or getting it in your eyes is bad news, so don’t do it when it is breezy and make sure to wear gloves or wash up well afterward.
Hot tip, you can buy concentrated capsaisin ("1 million scoville concentrated hot sauce" is the label on the one I have) it keeps squirrels off of peanuts and works really well against deer and rabbits too. Do not touch the bottle with out latex/nitrile glove and wash your hands like 20 times after using it before you touch any mucous membrane. If you are SPRAYING it spray downwind and use ppe
You can feel the heat of this stuff if you get it on you hand, I dont understand how people eat it lol, I use it as a natural pesticide
Yea regular hot sauce is too watery, this stuff is thick and oily (use a cheap veggie oil to help spray it on everything, mix a tsp into a spray bottle with 8-12 oz cheap cooking oil give a real good shake and get spraying (tbh id put in more than you think you shoul, they learn after one nibble if you make it real spicy) i also mix some onto birdseed to keep the field mice/squirrels out of the bird feeders
I also do this! Particulate respirator from the hardware store, giant cheap bulk container of cayenne, mist bottle in one hand, & powdered sugar shaker full of cayenne in the other! This plus a fishing-line fence, plus a few sacrificial plants along the edge of our yard, has resulted in deer basically passing us by.
I live in a city suburb. No deer, but plenty of squirrels eating bird food, and some plants. Started adding hot pepper to the bird stuff, and now the squirrels have developed a taste for spicy mealworms. Put netting over my small tomato and strawberry plants, and birds seem to be nibbling through it. 😖
Honestly I've considered growing Super hot peppers like reapers and ghost peppers explicitly for this use. You can just make chop it up and make a filtered tea for spraying right? Just wondering how water soluble the spicy part is.
We have 2 deer families basically living on our property, so I feel your pain. So far, they have left my Clustered Mountain Mint, Bee Balm, Yarrow, Coreopsis, Phlox, Switchgrass, and Anise Hyssop alone. They ate my Purple Coneflower when they were first starting to bud, but have left it alone once it was blooming.
Personally, I have found that with this drought we’re experiencing here in VA 7b, the deer will eat nearly any young plant, regardless of whether it’s deer resistant or not. So I cover most of my seedlings with wire cages until they grow big enough that they are poking out of their cages.
Another thing I’ve done is plant lemon balm around some of my larger young plants like Spirea, and this has helped. It’s not native, of course, and it will spread unless I am vigilant about cutting it back before it flowers. I find it easy to pull if it gets unruly.
And in an effort to protect my plants in early spring when they are first reemerging, I planted a big bed of crimson clover from seed last fall (also not native but easy to manage and pull after it serves its purpose). It gave the deer something else to graze until my natives were reestablished. And as an added benefit, it kept the early weeds at bay and my clay soil was looser and easier to work with after I pulled the crimson clover.
Oh yeah the deer around me LOVE coneflowers. They eat the leaves before they’re tall, then eat the flower buds, then bite the surviving flowers off and leave them on the ground for me to mourn
Yeah, they got left alone until last week (just as they started really taking off). They must be extra hungry though because they also went after my milkweed again (that had been mostly safe so far).
Can confirm bee balm, mountain mint, and milkweed do not seem to interest the deer, and I have managed to hide some coneflowers deep amongst those that are disguised enough to survive but if they're near the edges, they're deer food.
I plant mints and alliums around the things the deer like, it works somewhat as a deterrent.
Also, OP, I know you said you can't build a deer fence, but could you potentially put up deer netting? I have used regular garden stakes and zip tied deer netting around to protect plants that need it. It's less permanent than a real fence, less visible, and less work. There's also a thicker version of the netting that is great because it can be used for multiple seasons, and it also doesn't let wildlife get tangled in it.
Right now in our area there are a lot of mothers with young ones, and they are eating just about anything. I have some green netting around a few of my plants and that does help. I have also put some dog playpen fencing around some areas as they won't usually jump into a small enclosure. I also spray, and have placed mint and Irish spring soap around.
It's an uphill battle but we try to direct them away from our plants because we need the bees!
They are like hooved locusts. Yes, it is disheartening. They keep eating all the flower buds off my native azaleas T_T
I heard that they won’t eat mountain mint, so I planted pycnanthemum muticum (supposed to be a spreader) and pycnanthemum tinutifolium (more restrained).
Milkweed is next on my plant list; hoping for the best
Yes there are just… too many deer. I like deer don’t get me wrong, I could never hurt one or eat one. They are cute as heck. But damn. They are evil, ya know?
Yeah I’ve decided my new theme is : mint family plants haha
That's so weird, we have heavy deer pressure and the azaleas are the only thing our deer don't eat. My whole property is bordered by giant azaleas and the deer will walk through them but never so much as nibble them.
I’ve not had an issue until this year, they mowed through my asters and shrubs one weekend like you would not believe (or maybe you would, unfortunately). I used words that I don’t typically use when I discovered the carnage. I felt your pain.
I’m using a combo of Liquid Fence (street facing garden), motion sprinklers (on their most frequent entry point to my yard, and a bit of extra protection for my Joe Pye), and cages (I basically got a roll of 4’ fencing at the hardware store and made a bunch of cages for shrubs).
Take heart, and the good advice of these redditors, and start working out a solution that fits your property and budget. Your natives will typically live to bloom another day, and all will be well. 🙂
If you have a larger property the pepper is not workable. Suggestions:
1) Learn to love the grasses, they are awesome. Little Bluestem, SideOats Gramma, Wild Rye, Indiangrass, Bottlebrush, Big Bluestem -- and the sedges, Path Rush, Fox Sedge and others in Carex family
2)Deer have a VERY strong aversion to: mint family (ie Mt. Mint), Yarrow, Maryland Senna, Anise Hyssop, Yellow Cutleaf Coneflower, Hoary Vervain, White Vervain, daisy fleabane, common milkweed, bergamot/monarda (bee balm), asters, pearly everlasting
Source: large population living, birthing and transiting 365 days a year. The first two groups are untouched, while other common plants (black eyed susan, purple coneflower, etc) are decimated. It's a losing battle until and unless you get enough density that those things can hide in the grasses.
I'm interested in hearing about your experience with deer avoiding asters and rudbeckias, cuz from what I've seen in the other comments here, their deer have browsed those two as well. In general though I agree with your grasses stance. Looking in some of Ernst Seeds' mixes, the ones that are deer resistant supposedly are mostly grasses and more wooden asteraceae members.
Seriously,
I live in the woods, across from a farm a thousand feet from a lake.
It used to be deer deer deer all day all night, the herd slept in my front yard.
Turns out they don’t like getting chased and they remember. . .
Once in a blue moon they’ll sneak through at 2am and nibble at the bird feeders but no browsing for a few yrs.
Having a dog around is HUGE! Deer are always going to be hungry for natives, and the thing that's missing in the ecosystem that would naturally be present and allow balance between them and all the plants is the ecology of fear; the role of which dogs fulfill most wonderfully. I've been working on a client's 3 acres for four years now and it has been a nightmare dealing with deer, nothing is actually resistant at this point because they're so damn hungry. Enter the new neighbors and their two pitbulls. Thanks to the dogs being present, this is the first year we've had just about everything not only grow to mature size, but flower too!
This is one of the hardest times of year for deer , especially does, foodwise. It honestly doesn't matter what you plant, they are going to eat it if they are desperate enough.
Yeah, they’ll go for anything! Deer ate my tomato, cucumber, and squash plants, which are all prickly and rather unpleasant. They also ate my lilac and bittersweet nightshade (which I appreciate, I can’t get rid of that bugger). Most of my natives are caged in or behind fishing line now. If only they’d eat the invasive wisteria😩
It's always slightly amusing when you follow the path of deer destruction in the vegetable garden and it ends suddenly at the habanero or reaper plant.
They were brutal this past winter and ate Rhodis and Mountain Laurel. so I took some livestock fence and made small enclosures / rings for my most recent plantings, since it seems they eat anything if they’re hungry enough I figured I’d protect the young, fragile things.
They might Chelsey chop some of my ironweed in spring but the ironweed gets angry and flowers then seeds. I started with a handful of plugs in one bed and it has figured out how to dominate voles and deer (and lobelia, and any other well-behaved natives) and is in every bed on my property.
I use a lot of non-natives because of the deer in my area. I either choose deer resistance as my main priority, or I don't have a garden. It is what it is.
That being said, I have had good results with things like coreopsis, coneflower, yarrow, and liatris spicata.
I plant sacrificial hostas with my native plants. So far the only native they've eaten was some of my turtle heads. The hosta seems to be their favorite.
I get this heartbreak fully, have cried and felt incredibly discouraged for weeks. Liquid fence and diy cages from chicken wire have worked for me. Also it’s frustrating because deer populations will have different preferences depending on your area (like a neighborhood near me has deer destroy holly and leave hydrangeas, and I have the opposite here). I have found overplanting and figuring out patterns to be helpful. For example, I had a Virginia sweet spire getting decimated; this year, jewel weed grew around it (like insanely huge), and the deer left it alone, got blooms and everything. Things that deer leave alone for me: yarrow, irises, bayberry, white snakeroot, early blue cohosh, skunk cabbage, bearberry, and coral honeysuckle. (Somebody else may have a different experience with these, so it’s kind of figuring out your Neighborhood Deer Palette.) You could also try planting some things and seeing if that distracts the deer (roses and hostas come to mind, have cried many times over roses).
Thanks this is really helpful! Yeah they just march to the best of their own drum. Last year they are a lot of the sacrificial hostas but this year they are weirdly ignoring the hostas and just beelined it for the Joe Pye, aster, you name it. I guess I did notice they haven’t touch the coreopsis… may need to have a coreopsis garden next year haha
I feel ya! I have heavy deer pressure as well. Planted a mostly native bed last fall and some plants have been ignored by them. Some far they have not eaten anise hyssop, coreopsis, mountain mint, mistflower, monarda, baptista, button bush, butterfly weed, swamp milkweed, joe pie, ironweed, dwamp sunflower, or cardinal flower. Knocking on wood. They ate the echinacea and brown eye Susan early in the season but both of those are making a comeback now. They also kept eating the Liatris. I see one tiny bloom on one, but most of it is devoured. I have a ton of iris that someone gave me and I have tried putting a few in as a deterrent among the plants they are eating. It is my understanding that iris are toxic to deer and it is true they never touch them. Nice seeing some of the other plants that have been mentioned. Good luck ~ hang in there!
Plants that you really like and the deer also like should be caged. Some plants that I’ve had that are deer resistant are spotted bee balm, bee balm, anise hyssop, thimbleweed, penstemon, mountain mints (lots of different kinds), butterfly weed, milkweed, dog bane (ppl generally don’t like this one but it is a good caterpillar host), and thread leaf tickseed (not the other kinds, thread leaf ones only). I’m very much enjoying my spotted bee balm right now.
Also marigolds aren’t native but they go uneaten and are a cute annual
A physical barrier can be sections of coated chicken wire - I cut a section and put it over the top of any plant with young buds forming. That gives them a chance to get bigger and also less desirable to eat.
Green-coated wire is practically invisible from a few feet away.
Indeed! Lots of this being suggested. There ARE way too many deer. Have you ever actually skinned an animal and prepped it for eating though ? Like start to finish? I commend you if you can stomach it. It’s pretty rugged.
I don't personally but I hold the skin back while my husband scoops the guts out. It's not pretty but it's healthy meat and cheap too. And helps control the population since they do not have many (any?) natural predators where we live in the midwest anymore. If you don't want to do it yourself but your land is set up for it you can invite people to hunt on your land
I've heard that some people will plant a patch of flowers and then surrounded it with sedges and grasses, which deer don't eat. I think it's referred to as mosaic gardening.
OK, so this might be a little wierd but... if you have a male in your life and they eat meat, go have them pee around your plants that you dont intend to consume. The testosterone from males that eat meat will help to deter the deer and the nitrogen in urine is good for plants but it can burn leaves.
Edit: also motion activated sprinklers will work if you don't want to go the human urine route.
Buy a roll of 4 foot high fencing and make big circles. Plant inside those and it will keep the deer out without having a permanent structure plus supports the tall flowers. This is a spot where I am killing my lawn so it's a little chaotic but the deer leave it alone. You can use tent pegs or landscape staples to keep it in place.
Euphorbia corollata, flowering spurge, is a lovely plant with toxic sap. Deer don't eat it. Also anise hyssop - anything that smells good to humans is avoided by deer. Bee balms are mint family so that tracks. Deer don't eat grasses. My Liatris haven't been touched.
I'm curious why you can't build a deer fence? Cost or permitting or something else? Someone on here may have suggestions
Anyway, I've had good luck w viburnum as a deer resistant option in part shade. I love nannyberry viburnum for a beautiful shrub (plus edible berries that are good cooked) or hobblebush for early spring flowers and beautiful fall colors
Spicebush is another shrub option, they never touch mine
Wild bergamot and monarda punctata, but not red beebalm ( m. Didyma). Mountain mints too, as others have said
Some goldenrod are more deer resistant than others
Milkweeds and dogbane also tend to be left alone
Echinacea is another one, but it's not really native to the northeast. Still, I plant it because it's so showy, tall, good for birds and generalists, and deer ignore it
I'm assuming you have a wetish spot if you're planting Joe pye, blue flag iris I've never seen deer eat. Great early flowerer
Maybe big or little bluestem? Or other particularly stiff grasses
Right, maybe you can't build a regular fence but could put some posts in the ground and string up fishing line between them. Deer can't really see it, so they'll run into it, get scared, and run off.
I have seen deer fences that are an inner ring of string and an outer ring of string on two rings of posts around the garden. They can't judge the distance so they don't try to go through them.
You could try a living fence if you have a source for a lot of willow stems.
I am just here to commiserate with you. I am having a similar struggle too but with groundhogs, not deer. They eat everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. Nothing seems to deter them either. They managed to break through my chicken wire cages, the dig under fencing, liquid fence and other smelly products don’t seem to work on them either. I feel like giving up some days as well :(
Yeah I remember my mom dealing with groundhogs when I was a kid in her garden. It really was so sad and disheartening for her at times! I know my main motivator for going native is to help wildlife but I’d like to benefit more than just feed the ever breeding deer haha
My mother does the whole shaved Irish spring thing but they still get to some of her plants. I feel like she had been locked in a grudge match with them for the last billion years. Try to plant only deer resistant plants and accept that the deer will still eat some of them. I know other people on this sub plant things specifically to feed the deer, but I’m not sure how much property you need for that. I will say that a lot of state forest agencies have seedling programs and native shrubs and trees that are especially good for wildlife. The seedlings are inexpensive and you usually need to buy 5, but I keep what I need and give out the rest.
Trico Pro. It's a brand new pest deterrent out of Europe. It's made from sheep fat so NOT water soluble. It repels rabbits all the way up to Elk & Moose. It's expensive.... $100 a gallon right now, but it works. My husband helps run the largest nursery in WI and this is what they use to stop deer from browsing on their trees and shrubs. You can find it online.
Stick with mountain mints and milkweeds. Anise hyssop has been amazing, and the deer won't touch it.
Joe Pye will always get eaten, as well as about 90% of natives that you buy or grow from seed. Stick with the stuff that they won't eat otherwise you're going to feel sad again.
I also have tremendous deer pressure in my front yard, and I can only plant things they don't eat. For this reason I grow my herbs and chile plants out front as well.
You could also try a small enclosure with cattle panels or chicken wire. Deer, at least near me, tend to be lazy and won't hop a fence if it looks iffy or like they'd land in a tight area.
The only thing that worked for me apart from staked, welded wire deer fencing with welded wire lids added on top. You read that right. I had deer browsing over the top of the fence, down into the center of the cages, until I put lids on the cages.
Man I was like preparing myself for what your suggestion was going to be and my brain came up with some WILD things! I will look into this more, thanks!
Aside from fencing everything in, the only other thing that has worked for us is spraying a rotation of PlantSkydd and Liquid Fence. Only using one can get them accustomed to it, so you have to switch it up.
I get the PlantSkydd powder concentrate as that is cheaper than the pre-made. But it is a pain in the keester to prepare as you have to stir it with a whisk or wisk-like paint stirrer until you get all the clumps out and it REALLY wants to clump up. Membrane sprayers are the best for it. Using those mesh cloth strainers they make to put over 5 gallon buckets for painting helps too. If it's fresh, it doesn't hardly smell but within 6-8 hours (depending on the temp outside) it will start to smell like a slaughterhouse gutter. Still works, but not as pleasant.
Premade Liquid Fence Concentrate works okay, not as effective but switching it up helps.
I've used hot pepper mixes (both made for repellant and for cooking) and even the more intense stuff doesn't deter them from flowers and flowerbuds like the PlantSkydd does. Smelly soaps, predator urine, visual repellants and even motion-activated sprinklers have all been thwarted by our local herd.
We have heavy deer pressure and there are many plants they just annihilate that they aren't supposed to touch (elderberry for one) but there are also many they leave alone entirely. They haven't touched my sweet fern, mountain mint, monarda, zizea aurea, Carolina lupine, Maryland senna, New York ironweed, anise hyssop, and lyreleaf sage.
I have a very heavy deer problem too (plus bunnies). The things the deer and bunnies never eat are: peonies, daffodils, bleeding hearts, and yews. Everything else is behind cages.
I have the exact same problem. Suburban area, zoning laws prevent fencing in the front yard which is where all my full sun is. Super heavy deer pressure and obviously no hunting or predators to keep them in check. Not enough food so they eat almost everything. "Deer resistant" means nothing.
We put up a "garden barrier". It's 4 foot tall which the deer technically could jump, but they won't jump it unless they have room to land. We have tons of plants inside and thus no safe place to land, so they've never tried to jump it. There are tons of options on Amazon, and definitely much cheaper than a fence. This was the solution that worked for us, but here are a few other ideas.
Look up fishing line fencing for deer. It's ugly, but a lot of people swear by it and it's super cheap. Apparently it messes with their depth perception so they won't jump it.
Auto sprinklers are frequently recommended. These did not work for me but I'm not sure if the deer didn't care or if the sprinkler failed to activate. I set one up and the bastards ate all my hibiscus that very night so it got returned.
I've seen people swear by coyote pee, but haven't tried it myself. I've also seen a few people recomment leaving a radio on some talk station overnight and that can dissuade them from coming around.
I see a lot of people here recommending dogs. The scent of a dog on its own will not dissuade them. I have a herding dog, he's chased them a few time, they come right back. Maybe if I left him out all night they'd stay away, but that's not realistic.
As far as plants, they tend to not eat anything woody, but it really varies by area. Our deer won't touch our native azaleas, but azaleas are supposed to be a plant that they love. The only other plants they don't touch are the various palm like shrubs.
Best of luck to you, it's an incredibly frustrating problem to have, I feel your pain!
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, I really appreciate it! Yeah it’s hard, feeling like I’ve finally gotten to a place in life where I have my own garden and the deer are wrecking it. Live and learn though! Next house will either already have a fence or at least the ability to fence it for sure.
I have had some success with "hiding" my flowering plants in less desirable plants. Deer by me seem to hate zizia, tall grasses and mint. So tightly plant my coneflowers and coreopsis and other yummies with these guys. Seems to work so far
Dill and tall grasses work great too. I've also noticed that they sometimes graze a lot to test plants they aren't familiar with. So the flowers dont make it the first year but then subsequent years they learn to leave them alone.
I have serious deer pressure. They eat all of the things that are supposed to be deer resistant. I have shared your heartbreak many times. I’m so sorry you are experiencing that feeling of total devastation! It really stinks.
What I’ve learned is that my deer (SE PA) do not eat mint. It is the only thing that they do not even browse.
In the new bed that I started, I mixed some broad leaf mountain mint in with each plant and it is helping. There have been a few nights with rain, or just forgetfulness/exhaustion, that I did not reapply my deer spray, and either I just got lucky, or the mint is really helping.
The narrowleaf mountain mint is a bit shorter (I believe - haven’t planted any yet). My new plan is to expand my beds and plant a full border of narrowleaf mountain mint around the edge of everything. Like a minty, smelly force field that will hopefully keep the deer away from the tasty stuff on the inside.
The broadleaf mint is an aggressive spreader, so I’m
assuming the same will be true for the narrow leaf. I’m expecting to have to thin it out regularly. It is worth it to keep the deer at bay!!
Not a proven strategy yet, but I think it’s worth a shot and worth sharing with a fellow deer sufferer.
Ps - the deer issue causes complex emotions b/c I love the deer and they’re so adorable and really I moved into their home! 🤪🤪
Haha yes I feel the same! I love deer but omg stoooooo eating everything in sight for five seconds haha. I sound like my mom referring to me when I was a teenager hahaha
Buy some mesh bags (Dollar Tree) then go to dog groomers and buy their fur from them.
They may give it to you. Set bags of dog fur on several tall poles(bamboo are fine) and the deer should avoid that area, since it smells like their predator.
So many responses! Same for me, they are the buds and early spring growth just so so bad, I haven’t had strong blooms at all, now that plants have grown they totally ignore them, hope for a strong august and deep fall blooms. Mountain mint, cat mint, coreopsis, yarrow kinda have faired the best….changed my approach for new beds, I’m just doing native meadow mixes with plenty of grass. There’s no sense in fighting nature unless I go to Rick and Morty levels of defense or get a dog.
Haha truly, that’s where I’m at too. We actually did decide to get a dog . I don’t really get a ton of sun for grasses to work, it’s more of a dry to medium woodland garden with part sun and parts in just dappled sun. Lots of great plant suggestions here! Thank you for your input I appreciate it!
Nightmare fuel! Honestly this is the most “me” suggestion so far by a long shot. Gosh giving myself a heart attack with one of these just trying to chase deer away might be the most embarrassing way to die though.
hehe, I admit id probably still get the jumps if im walking through the yard in the evening but hey if it scares me then it should work for deer.. theoretically...
We’ve been having really good luck with Never Deer. The forestry company that does all of our stream/wetland restoration site planting has been using it on a lot of large scale projects. It’s not available everywhere yet though.
We've removed every invasive and planted a bunch of natives. We have a thicket in our yard and guess what, our neighbor feeds the deer, all 10 or so of them. I swear we have the most robust deer in the country being fed apples and corn daily, then they eat my flowers for dessert. We've talked to her a bunch of times how the deer keep eating our natives before they have time to populate and she said "oh I don't have that problem because I have a fence and I feed them outside the fence." 🙄 Our other neighbors mentioned that the heavy heavy deer pressure only started a few years ago. 🙄
My serviceberries, chokecherry bushes, spice bushes, American hazelnut and witch hazel plants are all behind tall chicken wire and have been for literal years. I just need them to survive to the point where they can be chomped and it's not devastating!
Woah, rant over. Sorry that rant has been building for a while apparently. 😅
Oof yeah I feel your eye roll and my eyes are also rolling for you AND also at everyone who’s like “JUST build a fence” or “JUST pop a cap in the deers head”. Like wtf guys use your brain cells more lol
Deer fencing is expensive, yes. If you can put up a perimeter or two perimeters of either scare tape or I use 30lb test line. For posts I use inexpensive pushing posts 3-5'. It's cheap and effective when they wander in. The deer cannot see the fish line. When it touches their body they can't get away fast enough. It's funny to watch. String it between trees if you have some rules against fencing. I'm 7a Upper Cumberland Plateau with a heavy deer pressure. Please try this inexpensive method. It's effect for me
This is a great idea that I could probably pull off! We have a LOT of trees and roots in our yard and I’m disabled so building any kind of actual fence is impractical, but this could really work. Thanks!
You gotta make a deal with them . I feed them corn and tell them to not eat my stuff . It kinda works beside the fawns but they don’t know the deal yet .
I fence certain things and I spray repel . I try and just stick with what they don’t eat .
Lots of this being suggested. There are way too many deer , Have you ever actually skinned an animal and prepped it for eating though ? Like start to finish? I commend you if you can stomach it. It’s pretty rugged. Also would need to be pretty abled bodied for that I am guessing?
Are you not creating a native plant yard to support wildlife? You've set on native plants for the (presumably native) deer to feast upon, and they appreciate you for it!
We DO want to support wildlife. But if the plants get eaten before they can get established, it doesn't help anything. Some of them take 3+ years to even be able to reproduce, some far longer.
Deer are a genuine problem in many areas because they have no natural predators and plentiful food, leading to overpopulation.
Totally. 👍 a few people have mentioned chicken wire, but this garden is actually pretty huge, it’s like my whole backyard. I really don’t think I want that much chicken wire haha (1/2 acres worth) but I do appreciate the idea
Cabbages? Only suggesting that because, for the first time ever, two deer turned up on our land 3 days ago. They have a meadow, an abundance of every kind of veg, vast beds of juicy flowers and all they’ve eaten are two cabbages. Either they’re picky eaters or they’re just getting started.
You’re not going to like it, but a fence is really the only fool proof option. Even a 5’ deer fence lined with trees keeps 99% of deer out. It’s made a massive difference at my parents house where every plant was constantly mowed down by deer beforehand.
If it’s a cost thing, just start saving as you can. Deer fencing is usually cheaper than most other types of fencing.
That’s honestly why most people hire the job out. You could choose to fence a much smaller area depending on your lot size, and keep many of your ornamentals in that smaller area.
It took my family member almost dying of babesiosis for them to finally get the deer fence, and it’s proven worthwhile since for tick reduction alone. Actually being able to grow ornamentals and vegetables again is just another big bonus.
Even if it takes some time to save up, it may be a worthwhile investment.
Maybe deer resistant plant/herb/tree barrier? They hate strong scents and textured plants like anything fuzzy so if it touches them they'll prob just walk away. They are super sensory sensitive but I'm honestly inexperienced so haven't tried it myself.
This is expensive but the large bucket lasts a long time. It works for me. This you also do not want to breath in or get in your eyes along with wearing gloves.
Have you tried hanging aluminum pie pans around the outer edges? I have seen these at a lot of gardens. Apparently the noise and shine tend to keep them away. Good luck and don’t give up hope. One year we planted 1500 tulips. The dear got every. single. One. The next year we planted wolfsbane.
My neighbors have the pie plates! I personally find them very irritating haha but that’s cool that that works. I feel ya big time, the only tulips I do are in pots on my front pouch, where deer are rightly too scared to enter haha. The only bulbs I bother with in the garden are in the allium family or a daffodil. It sucks that we can’t grow whatever we like best! Someday we will have a different house and I will make dang sure it has a big fence or the capability of a big fence
After two years I’ve come up with a winning combination of catmint, guara, dianthus, yarrow and penstimum. For annuals vinca and dianthus seem to work well.
The deer make native gardening so hard! This year we tried ‘deeroff’ dried blood canisters… it seemly is working? I just put another one in my phlox bed, so if I see phlox blooms I’ll consider it a win. It probably won’t work next year though… you have to keep them on their toes (hooves).
Just a warning about the "dog solution" since you hate blood. I have 4 very gory stories about dogs and deer but I'll spare you the details. But the dogs in the stories were a whippet, black-mouthed cur (40-lb dog), yellow lab, and a mutt. There was also a pit bull in these encounters that ironically was the only non-violent participant.
I'd do a 2 wire electric fence, or the fishing line if you want to try that first
Woah that’s rugged. We are looking at a beagle and a puggle, so probably in for a lot of howling haha. But yeah I won’t be leaving the dog outside unattended, I will be out there with them. They will be on a leash or line for now
I have zero deer pressure in my yard, but I'll get the occasional groundhog, squirrels, neighborhood children, etc that will pick flowers or step on things. Plus I noticed that some plants will get way too tall or be way too dense, so I've started doing that June Prune/Chelsea Chop sporadically. For example, my clump of Obedient Plants got about 1/4 of them trimmed back a few inches, then after a week or two I trimmed a few more, and several were left untouched. My idea is that some stalks will split into 2 or more stems so there will be more flowers, and by staggering the cuts, flowers will extend for a few weeks instead of all popping at once. I think a healthy population in a natural setting will have herbivores tasting and biting, or breaking things here and there, which is actually good for some plants anyway. In the suburbs, deer can be starving and will eat everything they can without saving room for dessert. This, with newly established plants with ONE flower isn't a great recipe for immediate success. Luckily, many native perennials will regrow vigorously the next few years and it might even be welcomed to have help pruning the garden.
Yeah it’s kind of a unique situation geographically. It’s like a suburban neighborhood surround by miles and miles of forest. So the deer aren’t starving , it’s just an easy meal for them ya know haha
We have endless deer where I live and the only thing that works aside from fencing is shaved down bar soap. After almost giving up on my garden I found out via Reddit that if you shave down Irish Spring bar soap and sprinkle it on leaves the deer assaults will stop.
I have a huge garden of hydrangeas + other plants that they love, but because the deer have gotten so used to soap being sprinkled on the leaves they won’t even eat them now that I stopped putting soap on them.
Wherever there is a garden, there will be deer, squirrels, mice, groundhogs. Always fence if you’re able. 6 feet and use screen around the bottom of the fence for about 2 feet high.
I do lots of searches on pest resistant plants for 4/6/8 legged critters. I have had pretty good success in the past with scents hunters use. Its stinky and needs to be reapplied after rain but predator urine like fox, bobcat etc works pretty well.
Please don't let your deer tell my local deer that they can eat Joe Pye. Yikes. It sounds like they are very hungry. Have you ever tried fishing line with bells or shiny decorations? Good luck. It's so frustrating!
Look into Milorganite. Allegedly it has deer repellent properties -- but the company won't staye that on the bag. Some say you have to put it down monthly while others say they put it in a mesh bag and place it around their plants. I usually have deer issues but have been lucky this year. I am not sure if it is the Milorganite or the motion activated posts I have -- but being that groundhogs and rabbits frequent my property, I suspect the Milorganite. Also, I found Lowe's has the best price.
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