RE: animals eating iris

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In a message dated 4/26/2010 1:07:27 AM Eastern Daylight Time, voltaire@islandnet.com writes:

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You are fortunate. We used to think white tail deer didn't eat bearded irises around here, either, but in the past few years, my experience has been very different. It started with occasional bites taken out of the fans, and often just spit out again (but still damaging, since newly set irises would be pulled right out of the ground). Over the past two years, the local deer have become voracious eaters, not samplers, of my bearded iris plants. They particularly go after the center of the fan, snipping out the developing bloomstalk and more tender center leaves, in preference to the outer leaves. They also eat my house foundation plantings of holly bushes, to the point where even covering them with plastic netting during the winter has not saved them. After 2 years of severe mutilation, the plants now look so bad that I am giving up and going to take them out. I have no idea what to replace them with!  Rabbits snip off the burning bushes that are also in that planting. 

It could be extreme population. Not too far away, the Village of Cayuga Heights, near Ithaca, is having such a terrible time with deer depredation that they are VERY actively quarreling over how to control the herds....paid hunters even a strong consideration. Cornell University, abutting Cayuga Heights, has to take extreme steps....fencing, netting, "glop" sprays, to limit the damage to the Cornell Plantations and ornamental plantings, and even those steps are not very effective. Deer run through the campus freely.

No longer fond of deer here!

Dorothy

Spencer, NY, USA