Deer eating everything in sight

[Dorothy 0]

Help! I live beside a conservation area and the deer breakfast on my front garden on a daily basis - roses, perennial geranium, echinacia, mulberry tree, campanula - you name it, they eat it.

 

I have tried Neem oil mixed as shown on the instructions of the bottle, various homemade remedies, Plantskydd, Deer Away, and male urine to no avail. The remedies work for a couple of days and then the deer just come right back. We now have a gadget bought through the Internet which supposedly emits a high pitched sound only heard by critters if they walk within its range, and that doesn't seem to be working either.

 

Has anyone come up with anything that works for more than a few days?

[Dsmith74 16]

I know the feeling, and I've only found one really good solution - fencing. Only things that I suspect are poisonous or really prickly like some conifers survive for sure without a fence.

 

I will point out one more thing although it's a theory, not a proven fact. The best way for me to get them to eat something for sure is to fertilize it with nitrogen, especially fast-acting stuff like liquid synthetics. Took me a while to put those two together. Even stuff I thought was poisonous or at least generally avoided like ipomoea will be gone in a week after a shot of Miracle Grow (except Dicentra, which my deer never touch - they even leave hosta growing under it alone, but if Dicentra dies down in a hot summer those hostas are doomed). If you like to fertilize frequently with strong nitrogen fertilizers, I suggest you lay off next year and switch to something slow-acting and low concentration. Plants may not be as lush, but gnawed stubs aren't all that picturesque either.

 

But if they're already coming to your place in search of food, breaking that habit is tough. You could try draping bird nettIng over some specimens. It is nearly invisible and they don't like getting tangled up in it. It might encourage them to head over to a neighbor's house for easier pickings.

[Dorothy 0]

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, fencing is not an option as it is my front garden they go for and I don't plan on fencing that in. I may try the the netting though - thanks for the suggestion. I certainly haven't heard of the nitrogen beckoning to them in the past so I will have to read the labels of my fertilizers more carefully.

 

Dorothy

[Sweetpea 0]

I have had deer eating everything in sight for many years until I decided to try Liquid Fence. My husband starts spraying in early spring just as the Hostas pop up. He sprays once a week for three weeks and then every three weeks until fall. We have not had any deer, rabbit or wood chuck nibble on my plants since we started this routine. The trick is to keep to the schedule. It seems the second year is better than the first, since we have not seen any deer in our yard this season. The smell is bad for a day or two, but fades. Also, if you buy it in concentrated form, it lasts a long time. It takes my husband about 5 to 10 minutes to spray (in the evening) our yard which is quite large. Hope you give it a try!!!!

[Saylors Momma 1]

I work in Ann Arbor, as a mail carrier. Some of my my routes are residential, right by the Arboretum. The deer roam free pretty much every where.

I've been seeing a lot of people hanging bars of soap, the stronger scented the better, for example Irish Spring. Supposedly the scent deters the deer.

Hang the soap in a mesh bag, old nylons, etc.

[Your Letters 2]

Have some deer damage again on several yews.  Not only do they take the tips, but the needles/leaves on that same branch are yellowed.  What is it that causes the additional damage to that same branch? It's almost as if it's chemical? Deer saliva?

C.H.

[Janet Macunovich 32]

You might be looking at what we call "deer browse burn." When the deer eat the yews they strip away the tips, the outer growth. In winter that means the remaining foliage is suddenly exposed to much colder air and wind. One moment the outer layer of leaves was there, protecting the inner greenery, the next moment it's gone.

 

All cold hardy plants prep for cold at the cellular level during the fall. Cells reduce their moisture level in fall so remaining liquid is saltier, less likely to freeze and burst the cell wall. The cells make other chemical changes, too in response to increasing cold, shorter days and less intense light. The tips - the outermost growth - become the hardiest and cells all down the branch below harden to a lesser degree.

 

So the brown you see is probably winter kill: dead or partially dead needles. Their suddenly-exposed cells froze and burst. The deer didn't eat them next time they came through because they no longer tasted as sweet as live needles.

 

Deer browse burn is worst on plants that were stressed in other ways such as having been repeatedly sheared without any renewal pruning and thinning.

 

Deer browse burn, on yews healthy enough to be growing lots of new green to replace what was lost.

 

Deer browse burn on yews that were already in trouble due to poor pruning practice.

 

 

You CAN keep a yew this small and keep it healthy. Prune once a year, hard, and thin. (You may then need to even up the outline in July but not always.) Do not repeatedly shear off every bit of new growth with year after year of several shears per yew.