Living out in the country is peaceful, quiet, and lots of animals we don’t see in the “asphalt jungles.” Deer being one of them.
For some time now, years, I have fed them corn in what I call their dinner dish. Those babies are soooo cute!
This has been going on for at least ten years and okay, they would pluck the beautiful roses off the bush , grrrrrrr, and one seemed to like the Rose of Sharon flowers, and okay, I really got mad when they devoured my Hosta’s on the hill.
But for some reason this year they are attacking flowers and bushes they have NEVER gotten after before, and I’m not the only one who is having this problem. A simple explanation can be, “well, they’re just hungry.” NOPE. It has to be something else going on because of this sudden, and I mean sudden, need to destroy our gardens. One even picked every tomato off my plant on a cement patio, even the green ones! They don’t like rocks or cement normally.
So I have joined others in our determination to save our flowers and fruit trees from these beautiful but destructive predators of nature. I have a rock garden with big beautiful Hosta next to the house. They’ve been there 13 years! My friendly deer, that I stopped feeding corn to 2 years ago because of expense, have discovered them and … want revenge.
Ohhhh that did it!
They have also destroyed my rose bush so I found a solution for that —- hopefully. I was in Walmart garden center and told the lady that was watering I want any plant that is deer repulsive. Yes, REPULSIVE! She led me to BEE BALM. She said they hate the smell of it and will leave the plant alone as well as others near it. She has several of them in her yard. After taking a quick whiff of it I can certainly agree with the deer, so I bought several of them and planted one on each side of my rose bushes. They have a very pretty small purple flower and will spread out like ground cover.
Now for the Hosta, what in the world can I do to save those? Suddenly “Pinwheels” popped in my head so I set out on a hunt for pinwheels and finally found some for a $1.25 each at the Dollar Tree store. My rock garden may look like a party is about to take place but I guarantee the deer won’t like those spinning colorful “leaf’s” going around and around.
And oh, I forgot – New plum trees. I have 2 and yes, you can guess, so through some research I chose one suggestion and it seems to be working. Wind chimes! I hung a small wind chime in each tree so it hangs free and will “chime” them away when they reach for a succulent leaf or come close. I have wire fences around my large blooming Cherry trees because the bucks, young and old, like to rub their horns on the trunk. They almost killed one of the trees before I discovered what was happening.
Speaking of succulent, my roommate has a small succulent in a pot and she sets it at the edge her patio for the sun. A deer pulled the succulent right out of the pot and then spit it out on the ground when he/she didn’t like the taste!
A lady that I was told about said her flower garden of 10 years was literally destroyed. Every flower was plucked off and some even uprooted. What she did is get those plastic flowers and plants and stuck them around in her garden and after a few nasty plastic chomps from the deer they don’t get near her garden anymore. Fake plastic flowers sure worked for her.
The tomato plant has new tomatoes and has been pushed back farther on the patio with, you guessed it…
So ladies if you’re having the same problem with deer destroying your gardens this might give you some ideas. I used the deer and rabbit repellant spray and it works fine as long as it doesn’t rain. But its expensive and has to be applied after every rain.
I hope this helps and happy gardening. Lets all pray that whatever is going on with the deer this year will STOP!
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