Whereas I was once charmed by the deer that roamed our grounds, today I am fed up. I have a considerable investment in landscaping around the property, and have several large gardens that have taken years to get to where they are today. The flowers, the shrubs, and hedges are–or were–truly breathtaking.
Problem is, these ravenous four-footed pests are destroying everything in sight. I’ve spotted upward of 25 deer feeding at one time. I do not want to shoot the critters. I have erected fencing, but I cannot surround the entire property. Nor do I have–or want–dogs.
Do you know of a TRULY effective product that drives deer away? Something that I can spray on and that will repel them?
This topic comes up every year at this time. But they have a new thing at the store to deal with it this year. It’s a motion sensor water sprinkler. It senses the deer in your yard & turns itself on & sprays them with water. Costs about $80.00…
Dunno what you do if you walk into your yard yourself.
Not to sound glib but don’t you feel kind of silly now? You moved into a rural area and knew there were deer and still went ahead and planted a veritable free-all-you-can-eat buffet open 24 hours. You had two conflicting dreams; growing a wonderful and diverse garden, and living in the country on the edge of a forest. Now your garden has been obliterated and you have to spend even more money on guns, dogs, or chemical or electric repellants.
The deer were there first. Put your guns away. Don’t Dream of having a garden. If you’ve lived there for a while you know your doing a pretty good job of controlling the deer population with your car. I’ve hit two deer in the same week where I live.
That’s the trouble with human encroachment into wilderness. The predators get scared off - partly because they’re very timid and partly because they’re seen as a threat by people and mercilessly driven off - leaving a nice safe neighborhood for herbivores and other cute, cuddly prey species. Faced with plentiful food and no predators, the prey species populations explode, bringing problems such as over-browsing, mass starvation, disease epidemics within herds and road kill.
The best thing to do is re-landscape using deer resistant plants. A list is here
Another thing you can do is provide an area near the perimeter of your property where you plant cheap plants (such as lettuce). This will hopefully keep the guys occupied and away from your prized plants.
Then there is the garlic treatment. You can plant garlic plants around your garden. This will sorta deter the deer from entering it.
My dad does something in his garden to keep away birds but I don’t know how it will do for larger critters. What he does in tie aluminum pie pans to the trees. This scares the birds away and keeps them from stealing his fruit.
What you really really need to do is realize you have moved into the deer’s neighborhood and accept that they are going to have munchies at your place. Buy a good set a binoculars and a notebook and enjoy the little guys.
Silly? No. My property has been passed down through the family and I’ve lived here all my life. We’re talking almost 150 acres of land, a main house slightly under 12,000 sq. ft., and lots of warm memories. Many of the gardens date back several decades. I think I have a right to want to protect it.
I would appreciate some serious suggestions, folks. Mountain lions, public urination, carpet bombing from a B-52, and the prospect of maybe 5,000 sprinklers going off at once isn’t terribly helpful. (grin)
Plus, all the whooping and hollering of all the neighbor kids running through your backyard like crazed Injuns will help to keep the deer away. Think of it as a popup autoturret for watergun fights and go with it.
I’ve seen these things in green catalogs; they look pretty cool. They only squirt about a cup or so of water per contact. My wife wanted to buy one to put on our roof to keep the pigeons off; I pointed out that everytime the wind blew, it’d spray the trees. Plus, it’d spray all the birds we WANTED in our back yard, too.
Oh, and you want to plug it into a faucet that’s around the corner so you can turn it off without getting squirted.
My mother fought this battle for years, and finally gave up and relandscaped with holly, privet, and oleander. Even afterwards, she once came home and found a deer eating the Christmas wreath on the front door.
She did have moderate luck by surrounding the vegetable garden areas with a netting fence (netting strung around high wooden stakes). This was a lot cheaper than a regular fence, and could be made high enough to deter jumping inside.
Those bags of hair that they sell for you to hang from the rosebushes don’t work. In fact, nothing short of land mines can keep deer out of rosebushes - apparently those rosebuds are really tasty just before they bloom.
Next time you have your hair cut, save the clippings (or better still, get a sackfull from your local barber) and use them as a mulch in the garden, not only will they slowly break down into useful nutrients for your plants, but the scent of human on them is said to deter deer.
Well carpet bombing is a bit extreme, you want small explosions situated in your own backyard. I’d suggest a propane cannon usually used against birds. The below website also has squakers and squeelers available as well.
And just think of the added benefits later on. If you’re lucky the deer will get used to the explosions and come deer season you could shoot at 'em to your heart’s content without then running away, not that I condone such behaviour, ( funnee checks checkbook balance to see if he can swing it). Where’s that goat cannon thread when you need it, aren’t they both about the same size ?
For propane cannons and other bird terrorist ideas…
Well, what has caused the deer population to increase recently? Have local forests been taken over by agriculture or development? Have predator species been driven out of the area recently? Have you recently planted some really delicious bushes? Maybe if you can identify the source of the problem, you can solve it. I imagine that you wouldn’t object to an occasional deer in your garden, you just don’t want your garden decimated.
Is there a deer hunting season in your area? Maybe you and your neighbors can convince your state/county/provincial/whatever government that the local deer herd is overpopulated and needs to be culled. As mentioned elsewhere, deer overpopulation causes more problems than ruining your garden. Roadkill is a hazard to both deer and drivers. Disease in deer herds can make its way into farm animals.
We’ve had great luck keeping deer out of our yard with a homemade contraption that bangs
a golf ball against tin (after trying all of the usual techniques with absolutely no success.) The metallic noise has turned our garden from a war zone to a retreat — no more deer eating my veggies to the ground! Check out our step by step instructions on how to scare deer.
We had success last year with Irish Spring soap shavings, but they don’t seem as effective this year. Mrs. Raza tried some store-bought stuff that is, essentially, rotten eggs. It seems to work, but: A) smells like rotten eggs; B) has to be applied 2x/week; C) is expensive; and D) smells like rotten eggs.
Peeing around the perimeters always worked the best for my family. Seriously. Although, it sounds like you won’t personally have enough pee for the amount of property you have.
Have you tried hot pepper spray applied religiously to their favorite munchies? When something starts burning their mouth they learn to avoid it quick.