{"id":1322,"date":"2015-04-27T05:05:25","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T13:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=1322"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:31:58","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:31:58","slug":"mr-antlers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/mr-antlers\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Antlers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Many<\/a>
Many deer favor violas and pansies as snacks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lately the morning news is full of breathless anchor people announcing that someone in some suburb has sighted a coyote.\u00a0 Easterners thought coyotes were romantic back when they howled at us long-distance from the West; it\u2019s different now the feral canines are here among us.<\/p>\n

The coyotes are keeping company in our backyards, parks, train right-of-ways and uninhabited buildings with other denizens of the wild, including skunks, rabbits, possums, foxes, wild turkeys, bears and\u2014most of all\u2014deer.\u00a0 I worry about the coyotes sometimes; I worry about the deer full time.\u00a0 They are omnipresent in my yard and my neighbors\u2019 properties, nibbling on the vegetation, defecating at will, nurturing their young and\u2014judging by the number of fawns–making whoopee in the wee small hours.\u00a0 If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me, \u201cCan\u2019t the town do something about this?\u201d I would be a rich woman.<\/p>\n

The answer to that burning question is a resounding \u201cNo!\u201d\u00a0 No matter what town you live in, the municipal authorities can\u2019t round up deer because some other town would have to accept the rounded-up herd.\u00a0 Most towns in my state have their own deer problems.\u00a0 My town can\u2019t bring in sharpshooters because in this densely populated suburb, a sharpshooter might accidentally wing some bond trader on his or her early morning sprint to the train station.\u00a0 Besides, there are those who would oppose the sniper idea even if Mr. Antlers were performing his morning toilette in the powder room downstairs.\u00a0 I make no judgments; this is just a fact.<\/p>\n

\"Deer<\/a>
Deer love tender, young growth, even on roses.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So we gardeners are stuck with hoards of hungry, four-legged pests\u2014some of which carry the ticks that spread Lyme disease–that can take out an entire expensive planting scheme in one long night.\u00a0 What can we do?<\/p>\n

Giving up on the garden is not an option for those of us who derive fulfillment from working the earth.\u00a0 Not all of us have the wherewithal to fence an entire landscape.\u00a0 So we have to take a series of small steps that will allow us to live in relative harmony with Mr. Antlers and his ever-increasing crew of deer.<\/p>\n

Some of us can fence specific areas and grow vulnerable plants within those cordoned-off plots.\u00a0 This requires a fence at least eight feet tall.\u00a0 To keep rabbits and borrowing critters out, the barrier should also have hardware cloth attached to the base and sunk into the earth to a depth of eighteen inches, with the bottom six inches folded outward at a right angle to the body of the barrier.\u00a0 I have seen gardeners who go so far as to construct vegetable garden-size cages with wire tops, which also discourages birds from dining on fruiting plants like blueberries and raspberries.\u00a0 The fenced\/caged area can be home to vegetables and edibles or vulnerable ornamentals including roses, tulips, fall-blooming anemones, hostas and coral bells.\u00a0 Most herbs can be grown outside the enclosure, as their strong scents make them less attractive to deer.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what,\u201d moans an enclosure-free friend, \u201ccan I do if I can\u2019t put in an enclosure?\u201d\u00a0 If you have an elevated space, such as a deck or porch, grow vulnerable vegetable and fruit crops in containers positioned on the raised spaces.\u00a0 Deer are not good at climbing multiple steps.\u00a0 If you have problems with raccoons, be sure to surround porch or deck-containers with tall collars of hardware cloth.\u00a0 Raccoons, many of whom probably send their clever offspring to MIT, can and will climb steps in search of delicacies.<\/p>\n

I grow only a few edibles and generally confine them to the porch, but I have a garden full of plants that deer consider gourmet delights.\u00a0 Because I have to tolerate Mr. Antlers and his fellow-travelers, I keep a container of deer repellent by the back door.\u00a0 This foul-smelling substance is a sprayable mash-up of peppers, rotten eggs and various other unmentionable things.\u00a0 Once the spray settles on the plants, it is not terribly noticeable to casual passers-by.<\/p>\n

Whenever I go out, I spray at least some of the vulnerable plants.\u00a0 Since most repellents need to be reapplied after rain or overhead irrigation, and periodically even in moisture-free weather, regular deer-spraying keeps your yard smelling unattractive to the deer and protects plants that would be goners otherwise.\u00a0 This strategy works well for me.\u00a0 The cost of deer spray is an ongoing expense, but it is still much less expensive than replacing plants and cheaper psychologically than giving up gardening.<\/p>\n

Knowledge is power and you can gain power over deer by knowing which of your particular plants are less desirable to them.\u00a0 There is no such thing as a \u201cdeer-proof\u201d plant, as deer in different geographical areas seem to prefer different foods.\u00a0 Also, a hungry deer will eat just about anything.\u00a0 In my yard, the foxgloves and hellebores are safe, most likely because even the deer know that the plant parts are full of toxins.\u00a0 Iris and hardy geranium seem reasonably impervious as well.\u00a0 Daffodils make Mr. Antlers shrug his impressive shoulders and move on.<\/p>\n

Rutgers Cooperative Extension has a neat list of landscape plants rated by deer resistance and searchable by plant name. Find it online at: \u00a0https:\/\/njaes.rutgers.edu\/deerresistance\/<\/a> \u00a0If you want something more specific to a particular area, check with your county cooperative extension service, which most likely has its own list.<\/p>\n

Until someone comes up with a better solution, many of us will have to learn to co-exist with Mr. Antlers.\u00a0 Remember to arm yourself with repellent when you go out and check yourself for ticks when you come in.\u00a0 The Lyme Disease Association has a great website with all the information you will need: http:\/\/www.lymediseaseassociation.org\/index.php<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the millennia, gardeners have overcome all kinds of challenges.\u00a0 We will eventually outwit Mr. Antlers as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately the morning news is full of breathless anchor people announcing that someone in some suburb has sighted a coyote.\u00a0 Easterners thought coyotes were romantic back when they howled at us long-distance from the West; it\u2019s different now the feral canines are here among us. The coyotes are keeping company in our backyards, parks, train … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[1165,298,257,1164,1166,1167],"class_list":["post-1322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-dee-repellent","tag-deer","tag-deer-resistant-plants","tag-garden-pests","tag-garden-wildlife","tag-lyme-disease"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1322"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1329,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322\/revisions\/1329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}