Greetings from VA! I am Mary Louise’s cousin, Kathy,  who follows her blog with envy. I live on a wooded and unfenced suburban lot and all my attempts at gardening are met with obstacles…mainly the 4-legged kind. Take for instance what I saw when I got up this morning and looked out the window. There at the end of the driveway where the trees begin was a deer up on its hind legs, nibbling at some leaves on one of the trees. It quickly moved on to the hydrangea I have in a pot there and snipped the tops off my potted day lilies as it went by.
I know by now you are wondering why I have some of these plants in pots. I also have an abundance of voles which LOVE day lilies and hostas as well as some of the shrubs in my yard. I watched 3 established winter daphne plants topple over after the roots were eaten. Over the years we have treated for grubs which feed the moles that do the tunneling that the voles run into but as one garden center here told us, unless the whole neighborhood treats at the same time, the critters run from yard to yard. Smart little devils!
Back to the deer…I have tried asking about deer resistant plants before I do any planting and they just laugh at the garden centers. Deer will eat almost anything and their appetite apparently varies by region as well. I put Indian Hawthornes in a flower bed in November after the Grounds Manager at the Sanderling in NC told me the deer don’t bother them there. Within 2 weeks, all I had left were nubs which after 6 months have finally leafed back out. If you look closely in the photo, they are behind the frog and heuchera I just planted. I have a new spray to try out on these. Cross your fingers!
The final insult this year was inchworms. They stripped all the leaves from all the very large oak trees in my yard as well as the dogwood, crepe myrtle, cherry and laurels. We have been here for 30 years and I have never seen anything like this before. They were all over the house as well…Super gross!
I will continue to be conflicted, I guess. I really love watching all the animals and birds that venture by but I am tired of all the damage they do.
As I continue to search for solutions, just sign me…
The Frustrated Gardener
Dear Frustrated Kathy,
While I can not attest to a perfect cure from the deer (my mom in northern Wisconsin) had to put up a 6ft fence around her veggie garden for years.
Those burrowing critters can be stopped with some hardware cloth (don’t let the name fool you, it is sold in the lumber department at Home Depot next to the chicken wire). Buy a roll (this will make many) and using garden leather gloves and wire snips, create a small “basket” for your plant while the small roots can stretch out past the “basket” your primary ones are protected. Make sure you have the top rim of your creation up at ground level. They can’t eat through the wire.
Good luck.
Thanks for the suggestion, Cherie. My yard man also told me to try just stringing clear fishing line across the entry points to the yard about waist to chest high. We can’t see it and apparently the deer don’t like to bump into it. Would be great if it is just that simple but we seem to have very innovative deer here in VA. A gentleman at a local greenhouse told me he moved here from Northern VA a couple of years ago and that the deer population here is 10 times worse! Lucky us!