Deer in the Garden

November 24th, 2005

    While we’re cozily feasting inside today, a horde of four-legged feeding machines is gearing up outside to turn your landscape into the Mother of All Buffets.

   Sorry to alarm you, but if you’re a gardener who has dealt with deer, you know the routine.

   These cutesy marauders that author Rhonda Massingham Hart calls “Agent Orange on hooves” can decimate a landscape like no other pest.

   Penn State University wildlife specialist Dr. Gary San Julian says just five male and five female deer can produce up to 200 deer in just five years.

   “The reproduction ability of this animal is huge,” he says.

   What’s more, a typical adult deer eats 4 to 8 pounds of food a day, according to San Julian.

   That’s a lot of hosta.

   As we continue to convert forests and meadows into housing, we shrink the distance between deer and us. And deer are adapting quite well, realizing we’re not as scary as they originally thought and that we’re even kind enough to plant all sorts of tender, nutritious vegetation for them.

   The back-yard carnage really becomes apparent now through spring.

   When wildflowers and native vegetation are plentiful during the growing season, deer at least have alternate menu choices. But when frost flattens the wild stuff, our tree-, shrub- and evergreen-filled yards become the main diner in town.

   What can we do to fight back? Try some of these…

   1.) Be careful what you plant.

   “The first rule of deer-o-scaping is to avoid plants that deer actively seek out,” says Hart, who wrote “Deer Proofing Your & Garden” (Storey Publishing, 1997). “Deer will make pigs of themselves when they find their favorite foods. And they will do it over and over again.”

   The problem with supposed “deer-proof” plant lists is that various lists often contradict one another. Also, deer don’t read these lists. The reality is that if deer are hungry enough, they’ll eat anything. Maybe even your SUV.

   Nevertheless, most deer seem to have a particular fondness for tulips, hosta, daylilies, yews, burning bushes, azaleas, rhododendrons, arborvitae, most roses and most fruits and vegetables.

   They generally don’t like strong-tasting, strong-smelling, toxic and/or fuzzy-leafed plants. See the list below for supposed “deer-resistant” plants.

   2.) Repulse them.

   Most garden centers have a shelf full of products that repel deer either by adding a scent they don’t like (blood, garlic, rotten eggs, etc.) or by coating the plants with a bitter or other yucky taste (Bittrex, hot peppers, the fungicide Thiram, etc.) Some products use both.

   Some of the brands that some gardeners swear by are Plantskydd, Bobbex, Deer-Away, Deer Off and Liquid Fence.

   I believe all of these work well, but the key is applying them often enough to keep the repelling scent or taste current — a challenge when it’s raining a lot or when plants are growing quickly.

   Don’t try to tinker with the labeled dilutions of repellents, apply them in early morning or early evening, and test them first on small areas of plants before coating everything.

   Hart says it’s also wise to rotate and alternate different repellents before deer get used to them.

   3.) Other ways to stink them out.

   A deer’s first priority when food-shopping is making sure he doesn’t become dinner himself. So picking up the scent of a possible predator or CSI scene involving an earlier deer may be enough to scare him away.

   Examples are the old farmer tricks of hanging sweaty shirts around the garden or hanging out muslin bags filled with human hair.

   Hershey gardener Burt Hendricks has had pretty good anti-deer success by fertilizing with Milorganite, a granular product that’s made from treated Milwaukee sewage sludge. Apparently there’s still enough human scent in it to make deer wary.

   And one long-time West Shore garden-club officer even recruited her husband to regularly pee around her rose beds.

   Another scent repellent favored by Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center Director Sally Ferguson is “Swedish Skewers,” made by soaking cubes of floral foam in a “soup” of bloodmeal, ammonia and water.

   To make those, mix 2.5 pounds of bloodmeal in a bucket of water and add 1 cup of ammonia. Impale foam cubes on bamboo stakes or skewers, soak them in the bloodmeal/ammonia mix and then stick them around plants you’re trying to protect. Ferguson says you may need to re-dip them weekly.

   4.) Surprise them away.

   Lower Paxton Twp. gardener Jim Booth and Shermans Dale gardener Ed Egolf both have saved plantings by using motion-activated gadgets that automatically spray a burst of water when something enters the watch zone.

   Others have used the same startling-action theory by employing motion-activated lights, radios, pie plates strung on wire and even mini-cannons set to go off at intervals (which might diminish your popularity with the neighbors).

   Then there’s the basic get-a-dog advice. Dogs usually scare away deer, but the effectiveness will depend on the dog and whether you’re letting him/her outside and unchained when deer normally come by to feed.

   5.) Fence them out.

   This is the ultimate plan. Deer-plagued public gardens such as Hershey Gardens and Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve gave up and just erected tall fencing around the entire perimeter. That works great, provided there are no openings and the fence is at least 8 feet tall.

   But perimeter fencing — even the less obtrusive black plastic kind — can get expensive and can give your landscaping that San Quentin feel.

   Electrified fences can be smaller and a little less expensive, especially if you bait it with peanut butter to lure deer in for a sample shock. But it’s still not exactly attractive and has the potential to shock you and the grandkids if you’re not paying attention.

   Another option is a double fence – a pair of 4- to 5-foot-tall fences placed parallel to one another 4 to 5 feet apart. Deer think twice about being able to jump far enough to clear both.

   And the simplest fence of all is a single strand of heavy-duty, deep-sea-fishing line strung between trees or posts at 2 to 3 feet off the ground. Many gardeners swear by this one, saying it confuses deer when they bump into it.

   Yet another option is erecting barricades around sensitive plantings. Brad Roeller, the gardens and grounds manager at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., says this approach works great when you use 6- to 8-foot-tall barricades of thick burlap, poultry netting or sturdy deer fencing.

   Here’s hoping one of the above is your answer. If not, you could always switch to plastic plants… which, come to think of it, would also solve our drought problems. 

• Plants for central-Pennsylvania gardens that are among the most deer-resistant:

TREES

   Beech

   Birch

   Flowering pear

   Goldenrain tree

   Hawthorn

   Horsechestnut

   Little-leaf linden

   Parrotia

   Red oak

   Serviceberry

   Stewartia

   Yellowwood

   Zelkova

SHRUBS

   Barberry

   Bayberry

   Beautybush

   Butterfly bush

   Caryopteris

   Daphne

   Glossy abelia

   Kerria

   Potentilla

   Pyracantha

   Spirea

   Snowberry

   St. Johnswort (Hypericum)

   Sumac

   Virginia sweetspire

EVERGREENS

   Boxwood

   Cotoneaster

   Leucothoe

   Falsecypress

   Japanese umbrella pine

   Nandina

   Oregon grapeholly

   Pieris

   Pines

   Spruce

PERENNIALS

   Ajuga

   Amsonia

   Anise hyssop (Agastache)

   Artemisia

   Balloon flowers

   Beebalm

   Bleeding heart

   Butterfly weed (Asclepias)

   Campanula

   Catmint

   Coreopsis

   Euphorbia

   Ferns

   Foxglove

   Goldenrod

   Hardy geraniums

   Helleborus

   Iris

   Lady’s mantle

   Lamb’s ear

   Lamium

   Lavender

   Liatris

   Flowering onions (Allium)

   Meadow rue (Thalictrum)

   Monkshood

   Montauk daisy

   Oregano

   Ornamental grasses

   Pachysandra

   Peonies

   Russian sage

   Salvia

   Sweet woodruff

   Turtlehead

   Vinca (myrtle)

   Yarrow

ANNUALS

   Ageratum

   Angelonia

   Begonia

   Bidens

   Calibrachoa

   Cleome

   Geraniums

   Gomphrena

   Lantana

   Lobelia

   Marigold

   Melampodium

   Nemesia

   Nierembergia

   Ornamental peppers

   Osteospermum

   Pentas

   Salvia

   Snapdragons

   Verbena

   Vinca

   Zinnia

Sources: Deer-Resistant Landscape Nursery; Cornell University; Rutgers University; Mohonk Mountain House 

   A homemade deer repellent suggested by Brad Roeller, the gardens and grounds manager at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y.

   1 egg

   1/2 cup of whole milk

   1 tablespoon cooking oil

   1 tablespoon dishwashing soap

   1 tablespoon hot sauce

   1 tablespoon oil of rosemary

   Mix all ingredients well together in 1 gallon of water.

   Spray on plants every 10 days for best protection. Apply only when temperatures are above 40 degrees.