Re: New approach

Good luck, Auralie. The plants the deer have never touched here are Lunaria annua, Lespedeza thunbergii, Clerodendrum trichotomum, Mirabilis jalapa, all my different types of sages, and Mahonia (both japonica and aquifolium). The first year I had the M. aquifolium they bit the top off and spit it out. They have not bothered it again. These are plants that are planted away from my house and are easily accessible to the beasts. Oh, they also ignore Ricinus communis, Callicarpa, Calycanthus and Hamamelis virginiana. There are, however, plants in the same beds that Bambi does like. I'd be glad to share any seedlings with you. 
zem
zone 7
West TN
----- Original Message ----- From: <Aplfgcnys@aol.com> 
To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2007 12:41 PM
Subject: [CHAT] New approach



Since the deer have totally wiped me out this summer - worse than
ever in all the years we've been here - I was thinking of some way to
fill in the blank spaces for the rest of the season.  Everything I have
done in past years has failed this year.  Things that the deer usually
don't touch, like Monarda, they have mowed down.  Somehow they
got into my one protected bed of hostas and totally demolished them.
They have eaten the two large old hibiscus bushes on the front stoop,
and topped a large pot of Achimenes about to burst into bloom.  They
ate a large pot of 'Red Flash' Caladiums in my breezeway, where they
have not come before, and also took the top out of a 'Silver Mound'
Artemisia in another breezeway pot.  They have never touched the
Artemisias before.  They even nibbled at a pot of 'Lemon Gem'
Marigolds.  So I figured that if I put out annuals, that would just be
asking them back for dessert.  But DH has invited a lot of people
here for next weekend, so I needed to do something fast.
This week we went to a meeting at the Orange County (NY)
Arboretum.  This is a new enterprise - just about 5 years old - that
we had been hearing good things about.  We were extremely well
impressed with the facility and the progress that has been made in
just five years.  On the way out, the director said "By the way, there
are some plants left from an earlier sale.  Take a look at them."
There were quite a few conventional things like Impatiens, but my
eye fell on a bunch of flats of Tricolor Sage.  They were nice 4" pots,
well filled out.  I have several growing in large pots with Bergartten
Sage and Purple Sage - makes a nice looking pot - but I thought I
might add another, so picked one up, expecting to pay a couple of
dollars for it.  When they said fifty cents, I couldn't resist, so I
brought home two flats of a dozen plants each for $12.00.  What
a bargain!  Now I have filled in one entire bed and blank spaces in
another, plus a couple more pots where the deer had eaten what
had been originally placed there.  Of course they may suddenly
develop a taste for sage, but they have never eaten it before.  Keep
your fingers crossed for me that this works and I have deer-resistant
beds (nothing is deer-proof).
Auralie
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