My friend Cate asked me how to keep deer out of her yard. These techniques only work until the deer gets used to them, but that may be long enough for them to move on. Deer love tulips, laurel, forsythia, Japanese yew, crocus, pansies and anything with fruit.
You can put mothballs around the plants but not if you have dogs; they may want to play with or eat them. Another option is to go to a barber shop and ask for human hair (it should be free) and scatter that around and in your plants.
Some people have put hot sauce into a bottle of water and sprayed the plants. I would recommend testing this on only a couple of leaves first and wearing gloves. Make sure you label the bottle.
You can hang bars of soap from your trees using rope, or try hanging wind chimes; deer don’t like movement or noise.
Otherwise, planting deer-resistant plants will work too. These include butterfly bushes, bugleweed, boxwoods, St. Johns wort, tiger lilies, wisteria, bougainvillea, lavender, shasta daisy, lambs ear, and peony, among others.
And if all else fails there are store-bought repellents but make sure that they are pet friendly. So, I hope that some of these will work for you. If you know of any other techniques please share!
What do you think about Deer Scram? I tried moth balls around pansies that were in a planter, and the deer laughed at me, and proceeded to destroy my pansies.
ReplyDeleteI've heard of Deer Out but not Deer Scram. I'm sure they work. You can also take an old laundry detergent container and fill it with with water and add one beaten egg. You store this outside but out of the sun. Once the egg starts to rot you can spray the solution onto the plants. It will smell like rotten eggs until it dries. You have to reapply after it rains. Deer don't like the smell and won't eat the plants. It doesn't cost anything really and it works.
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