Re: Those Deer !
- Subject: Re: Those Deer !
- From: E*@aol.com
- Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 17:35:55 EDT
In a message dated 7/31/02 4:20:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time, lwallpe@juno.com
writes:
<< The damage to my garden has been extensive this year. They ate appx. 85%
of the daylily buds, probably 75% of the hosta, every Asiatic lily, a
blueberry bush and numerous other things. About the only things they
haven't touched are the black-eyed susans, cleome, verbena bonariensis,
and the hydrangeas. >>
I feel sorry for you Linda, having had the same experience some years ago.
It made me come into the house, sit at the kitchen table and have a few tears
and announce that I was moving. The egg thing is rotted eggs, I believe,
smell awful.
I stopped trying to deter deer as in the end nothing works except a fence.
All the things are very labor intensive in a large garden. I had some lilies
I never saw in bloom until the fence went up. Hostas here were around three
inches high all the time. Aside here, when you get rid of the deer and the
garden is flourishing, the voles come back.
But a fence is what you need and it need not be the great expensive
contraptions in the all the state bulletins. We have had only two deer in the
garden in about five years and both times were our own fault as gates were
left open. I have an arborvitae hedge backing up a big perennial garden up
the driveway. Every plant in that hedge has a "donut" eaten around the
center of it from the one night grandchild left the gate open. He is not
accustomed to living inside a fence. That was early this summer.
Ours is standard farm electric fencing and fences a large area. Nothing gets
by this fence with a few tricks needed in flat places where deer can get a
running jump. It did not cost as much as moving so I have the fence. I
would have no garden what-so-ever without the fence. Most people in our town
do no vegetable gardening any more because of the deer.
When you are not too upset, look into the fencing option. Why do all that
work and lose the end result. Going out in the morning and seeing the damage
is awfully depressing, I agree.
Sometimes, the deer walk around the outside of fence and look at me. Once we
had one in the garage walking around. We stood and observed as it walked out
nonchalantly, did not even run. I have a great fund of deer memories and
none of them made me a happy gardener.
There is the Lyme disease problem in the East also. My county adjoins ( a
mile or two) Columbia County, NY, the county with the highest incidence of
Lyme disease in the entire country. I like to think that deer cannot get near
where we spend our time outdoors and that may make us safe. A great many
people in the garden groups around here have had and recovered from Lyme
disease, some twice. Every gardener here knows what to look for and gets
right to a doctor.
Claire Peplowski
NYS z4
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