Deer are clever little beasts. Someone once told me that deer are just like oversized rats. It's easy to get bitter when you live in deer country. Suddenly their cuteness disappears, replaced by the vision of your beautiful plants in their bellies on four skinny legs. In effect, it looks like you're mainly feeding the ticks.
But I used to own pet rats, so I know they are clever little beasts. I live on an island in a cluster of islands. Talking to gardeners on some of the other islands, and even some people just across the other side of this island, find deer eat things they don't eat here, and vice versa. A local bamboo grower never had to fence anything. Then one year all the baby deer started eating the bamboo -- so my conclusion is that all deer have different tastes, and they will adapt to prevalent food-stuffs over generations. We have white-tail deer here -- apparently Mule deer have different tastes, but again, I'm betting that's based more on local populations than preference by species.
They will also almost always try something newly planted if they haven't come across it before or don't recognize it from previous wanderings. A brand new perennial to your garden, not matter how unpalatable it has been professed to be by whatever you've been reading or hearing, has to be tried by the local deer before they will figure out they don't like it. So don't be surprised if for the first year your new deer tolerant garden is munched and chewed.
What you want out of your garden will play a large role on whether or not you want to fence it. Obviously, in a natural setting fences can be very ugly and rob the surroundings of natural beauty. Fences can look nice too. I think my fence looks pretty good but I'm not sure my neighbour would agree. One thing's certain, if you are trying to grow any food plants, a barrier is absolutely necessary. You can have low cages over things like strawberries. They have to be very strong though.
Deer tend to stand on low cages and will kick at them if there are delicious things like strawberry plants. lettuce or low beans inside. My fence is 8 feet tall in some places, but only 6 in others, where it is difficult for the deer to jump over because of a slope. It's not that strong though and last year one end got pushed in. Deer are strong and not stupid. They're not as clever as racoons when it comes to dismantling barriers, but still, they know how to get what they want.
Go To Page: 1 2
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Jojo Sigurgeirson's Perennials topic, please visit the Discussions page.