Re: Amer. Gardener article/Wild Greens

In a message dated 01/23/2004 1:31:19 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
mtalt@hort.net writes:

> You are much kinder in print to deer than I am:-)  I used to think
> they were beautiful animals and now I consider them hoofed vermin and
> can't think of much nice to say about them. 
> 

I'm not fond of them, either, but I've come to accept that they are here and 
I've tried to develop a situation where we can exist with them.  Because of 
the way our land sits among huge boulders and slopes, and because of its strange 
gerrymandered shape (the old man who built the house and sold it to us 
thought he had given us all the bad parts and kept the reasonably flat area for 
himself) there is just no way to fence it.  I love the boulders and flow of the 
land.  We  are against an undeveloped portion of a county park on one side, and 
to the other direction only a few hundred feet from an AT&T power line, so 
there are woods on both sides, and large quantities of deer.  Shooting a few, 
even if it were permitted in this area, would not even make a dent.  It has 
become a challenge to me to develop a landscaping style that is somewhat deer 
resistant. 
 I have a small fenced vegetable garden - about 40'x40' where I sometimes 
sneak in a choice plant, but I find I have more and more flowers there so I have 
tried to resist this trend. There are a couple of other small pockets that I 
can protect with fishline where I have a few choice plants, but for the most 
part I have become pretty good at using things they don't particularly like.  
Deer will eat anything once in a while, but there are quite a few things that 
they don't eat often, so I just plant lots of those.  I find that Epimediums, 
Ruta graveolens, Monardas, Asclepias, many low-growing plants and rough-textured 
plants like Maiden grass are not often bothered.  Of course they don't eat 
daffodils, so I have a grand display of them in the spring, but I only put 
tulips into the fenced garden.  It's frustrating not to be able to grow favorites 
like daylilies and such, but I do still manage to have lots of things growing.

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