If deer are eating your shrubs, there’s no need to blast out the door yelling like a mad woman, disrupting the peace of a beautiful January morning for neighbors far and wide.
What CAN you do if you have deer browsing on things you’ve planted?
1. Plant deer-resistant natives. There are many good options to choose from, and you’ll not only be free from deer browsing, you’ll be practicing ethical, ecologically-sound gardening. We all need to be thinking of this when selecting plantings. It’s the only way to save the native ecosystems, including beneficial insects and birds.
2. Plant extras for the deer. If you have to plant things the deer love, try planting extras, further out on the perimeter of your property, so they have something to nibble. After all, they were here before we were. They’re living creatures too and they have to eat. Maybe this can be part of an overall plan for a wildlife-friendly property. You can even get it certified and take pride in doing your part to help our native plants, insects, and animals thrive! Our environment depends on healthy, native ecosystems.
3. Fence your garden. If you want a wildlife-free gardening experience, use fencing. It works really, really well.
Feel free to add more tips in the comment section!
Sincerely,
Woman Who Loves Peace, Quiet, and Wildlife
billie hinton’s camera-obscura:
life and lessons on November Hill Farm
2 comments:
Sometimes we have a whole herd of deer eating our grass, which I don't mind and they seem to stay away from by bushes. The only thing that bothers me about them is they constantly break our fence rails at the house because they just don't jump high enough to clear them. This leads to a lot of money replacing broken rails every month. So they're welcome to graze but they've got to start being better athletes when it comes to jumping!
Since we fenced the perimeter with board and woven wire they don’t come on our property at all, which makes me sad. We never had issues with them eating anything I’d planted. They grazed with our herd and ate acorns and that was it. They do still come close to the fencing and it seems almost like they want to come in, but they don’t even try to jump the fence now.
It seems like them hitting the fence hard enough to break it would hurt enough that they wouldn’t keep doing it!
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