Dear deer: Please don’t mangle the landscaping

Ever since I moved into my sub­ur­ban neigh­bor­hood three years ago I have heard the neigh­bors com­plain about severe plant, veg­etable and tree dam­age inflicted by deer on their well-tended land­scapes. I didn’t get it. My land­scape was doing fine. Besides, view­ing the deer was a near mys­ti­cal expe­ri­ence. On my early morn­ing drive out of the neigh­bor­hood into the city, I would see sev­eral deer spring­ing through a meadow. Early evenings I would watch them graz­ing in a neighbor’s yard. Once I saw seven deer in a con­fab gath­ered right across the street. The deer were so cute. What’s not to love about Bambi?

That was before a deer moved right next door. She star­tled the mail­man when she unex­pect­edly jumped out of my neigh­bors bushes (her home!). Our neigh­bor­hood deer act more like well-loved dogs than wild ani­mals. And appar­ently, they now con­sider my yard their local con­ve­nience store, deli and super­mar­ket rolled into one.

This year, prac­tic­ing sound gar­den­ing tech­nique, I rotated my veg­etable gar­den from my back­yard to a side yard where my plants could enjoy full sun in a south­ern expo­sure bed. I lov­ingly pre­pared the bed by till­ing the soil and adding nutri­ents. As an after­thought, I added a four foot fence. In the for­mer gar­den, I planted zin­nia seedlings I had cul­ti­vated indoors under a grow light. I added wild­flower seeds and a few poppies.

I planted, watered and patiently waited for nature’s magic to occur.

How­ever, each year I find that gar­den­ing poses a new set of tri­als. Last year, we had too much rain so even get­ting plants in the ground was a chal­lenge. This year’s drought and intense heat has meant extra water­ing. I was forced to move hang­ing bas­kets to cooler loca­tions. What I didn’t real­ize was that the intense heat and drought would erad­i­cate much of wildlife’s nat­ural food sup­ply send­ing the beast­ies to my back­yard for nourishment.

First under attack were the pop­pies, fol­lowed by my cone­flow­ers, zin­nias and phlox. Leaves have been stripped, and most blos­soms removed. Most resources list zin­nias and cone­flow­ers as deer resis­tant. My deer and her friends eat them like candy. My 4-foot fenc­ing around my veg­etable gar­den pro­vided lit­tle pro­tec­tion and I began to see the newly ripened toma­toes chewed up with rem­nants spewed on the ground.

In panic mode, I began research­ing deer defense and in the process learned there were a num­ber of things not to love about Bambi. Although wild and mag­nif­i­cent, deer and other wild ani­mals can also carry and trans­mit dis­ease. Deer can bring deer ticks, rac­coons and foxes can carry rabies and other mam­mals have dog ticks. The deer pop­u­la­tion in Ohio has exploded, grow­ing from 17,000 in 1970 to 750,000 today. So how do we gar­den­ers defend against this wildlife tsunami?

The first line of defense is the selec­tion of deer-resistant plants. Inter­net research will reveal lists of both rarely, mod­er­ately and fre­quently dam­aged plants. How­ever, keep in mind that when food is in short sup­ply deer will browse even the most unde­sir­able plants.

I next looked to pro­vide deer bar­ri­ers. As an exper­i­ment, I planted marigolds around the perime­ter of my flower bed. Many believe that the unpleas­ant marigold odor will offer pro­tec­tion. This did not work at all. At first, the deer reached right over the marigolds and bull­dozed my more prized flow­ers. Then, they ate the marigolds.

I con­sid­ered using repel­lents. Nat­ural repel­lants include human hair, Tabasco sauce, feath­er­meal, blood­meal, cre­osote, soap, coy­ote and fox urine. There are a num­ber of com­mer­cial repel­lants on the mar­ket that uti­lize scent and/or tastes to keep deer from munch­ing on plants. This is a good option for a land­scape or gar­den that has a lim­ited area to pro­tect. The dis­ad­van­tage is that they have to be re-applied on a reg­u­lar basis. Unfor­tu­nately, repel­lant use can be hit and miss. What works in one loca­tion may not work in another. The great­est pro­tec­tion comes from using sev­eral dif­fer­ent repel­lents and rotat­ing their use. Over time the cost and labor asso­ci­ated with this may make fenc­ing more attractive.

Most resources advise 8– to 10-foot fenc­ing to pro­tect against deer. My 4-foot fence was com­pletely inad­e­quate. One of my neigh­bors used bird net­ting and sug­gested this tech­nique to me. So far, it seems to be doing the trick.

Although my flower gar­den has been reduced to a war zone, I have hope for the future. The nat­ural process of decreased food avail­abil­ity may already be decreas­ing the pop­u­la­tion. A cooler, wet­ter fall may revive some of the nat­ural wildlife food so the deer will leave my gar­den alone. I can try to make my out­door area as unat­trac­tive to deer and other wild ani­mals as pos­si­ble by never leav­ing out pet food or water, keep kitchen dis­posal areas clean and tightly con­tained and keep brush and under­growth cleaned out, elim­i­nat­ing places for ani­mals to skulk while they shop at my supermarket.

Mas­ter Gar­dener School to be offered in 2013

If you would like be a Delaware County Mas­ter Gar­dener Vol­un­teer, please go to our web­site for more infor­ma­tion, (http://delaware.osu.edu/) or give us a call at the OSU Exten­sion office, 740–833-2030.

Michele Pear­son is a Delaware County OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener Volunteer

Posted by Master Gardener on Aug 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.