I recently moved and read they did not like them so I felt safe. They ate every leaf off of all my Hercs. 15 of them. I was heart broken. They are stuggling this year to come back to the large size plants that I brought.

I started putting hair around them and shaking baby powder around. I do not know what I am going to do. I love to garden and I am already discouraged that I am not going to have the wonderful garden I imagined.

I sympathize completely, having the same problem. But those remedies will not work. Liquid Fence and products like it have worked for me, except in bitter cold weather, not an issue with perennials, sleeping soundly then.

I have refused to use any chemicals in my beds for yrs. Letting japanese beetles go to town on my roses etc. I have used cayenne pepper with some results, but you have to use it too frequently, and I forget until I see the damage. I may resort to the liquid fence tho. I have spent too much on flowers this yr, espec the Heuchera.
Tammy

They sure do!

The four or five plants that I have left, were moved to the fenced in backyard in hopes that they will make a comeback. The only things in my yard that they like even better than the Heuchera, are tulips and daylilies.

Bonnie

yep, they eat the tulips and daylillies of mine too. I came home today and the blooms of all my peach colored ones are gone, but the ditch lillies growing right beside them were left alone.
Tammy

I am so sorry to hear this... I completely feel your pain because they have done some serious damage to my yard lately too! They ate all these supposedly "deer resistant" plants, such as my achillea (YES!!!), hydrangeas and agastache! What on earth???

Anyway, Liquid Fence is good stuff. It's rather expensive and it does seem to wash off with rain though. In fact, my latest deer attack happened right after some heavy rain that seemed to have washed the LF away! Sigh... I have also tried Deer Off lately but it seems to leave some nasty white residue on the leaves, and some of the young leaves also seemed to be deformed after they were sprayed with it. I am also trying Irish Springs too. What a nightmare!

I'm not surprised at them eating heuchera, daylilies, hostas or hydrangeas.

The fawns (especially this time of year) will sample almost anything, including some agastache, salvia and monarda. However, they rarely do more than just deadhead a few of those plants, then move on.

Since the deer herds literally sleep a few feet from my outer gardens, I grow thick gardens of deer resistant plants. The vulnerable times are when the fawns venture out in June (in my area) and again in late August-October as autumn shuts down a lot of their food supply.

I MUST GARDEN is a good repellent (I don't use the deer version, I use the rabbit version).

If you have a small enough garden to protect, you can use 32" high wire edging fence in two rows, about 3 feet apart. In other words, it is low enough that they could jump over it, but by placing the fence in a parallel row, it is too wide for them to safely jump in between the two rows to get to your plants.

I use this temporary fence method around new plants until established in the spring. Once the deer resistant plants are large enough, I remove the edging fence.

Hope this helps.
Cameron

Liquid Fence isn't a chemical the way we think of chemicals. It's just hot pepper and other yucky stuff. It is expensive but goes a long way if you buy the concentrate, less convenient than the ready-mix but cheaper in the long run.

They tell you to apply it twice, a week apart. Then it sticks for quite awhile, a month or two, even in the rain. I guess it could wash off if it rains right after you apply it.

If you garden in deer country, like I do, there are certain plants you must avoid--hostas, tulips, yews, daylilies (unless you plan to spray a lot). I have huge gardens of mostly deer resistant to highly deer resistant plants, and have little damage. I do spray certain plants--Solomons Seal, a couple of daylilies, a patch of Japanese Anemone, and in winter, when they come after woodies, I wrap netting around the oakleaf hydrangeas. The sprays are organic, at least the ones I use--Liquid Fence, Deer Off--and are very effective.

thanks for the info on the liquid fence. I may try it. Mine arent just eating a bite or two. I had a patch of about 20 peach lillies, 2 heuchera, 4-5 wave petunias,Annabelle Hydrangeas, and more that were eaten when I got back. But I do live in deer country. I am surrouded on 2 sides by woods.
Tammy

Tammy, I also live in deer country surrounded by woods, and the Liquid Fence works very well. I alternate it with another product called Deer Off that smells less bad to me -- like mint. Both products consist of stuff like egg and pepper and mint or garlic. You can also make these sprays yourself -- apparently as effective, and cheaper. They are not harmful in any way as far as I know, they just smell bad to the deer.

Thanks Jayco. I might research a little more the home made recipes.
Tammy

Well, I did some quick research and went to the kitchen and threw an egg, hotsauce, cup of milk,dawn liquid soap, tb ammonia,cayenne pepper,and garlic cloves into a blender, then let it strain thru a cloth, and added water. Put it in a sprayer and hit the garden. This mess is so strong, it made me cough. I know I am going to smell real good, cause the wind blew a few times as I was spraying, and I got some blowing on me,lol.When I cut garlic my hanbds smell like it for a day ot two no matter how much I wash my hands.I just hope the deer find it as disagreeable as Me and my grand daughter did.

People say they don't eat boxwood. I have only two, and they are out of the deer highway. But maybe it's because boxwood smells so--strongly. Anyone had experiene with deer and boxwood?

Boxwood is way, way down on the list of things deer eat. BTW, deer normally eat woody plants in winter, and they'd have to be starving to eat box. Ditto spruce.

Just a tip for removing the garlic smell from your hands.
Wash with soap and rub hands along your stainless steel
taps or other SS item. The smell is gone like magic!
BTW, thanks for all the help on deer.

Has anyone tried a scarecrow?

I have had great success with egg, squirt of liquid dish soap and water in the blender, strain it and put it in an old Windex bottle. I save old Windex bottles in case the nozzle gets clogged. I leave the bottle by the front door and respray after a heavy rain. I make life easy for myself by keeping stuff like hostas close to the house and planting deer-resistant stuff in the beds farther away. The most important thing: be careful which way the wind is blowing, if you don't want to be coated in stinky egg spray. Visiting gardeners are shocked by the stuff I grow. They say sprays don't work for them, but the trick is to make sure you are consistent--if it rains, you have to make sure you get out there to re-apply. We have bazillions of deer passing through the yard all the time, so I know it works.

Sorry, but a scarecrow won't work. Neither will a herd of metal goats (which I have - long story) or even a motion activated sprinkler or lights!! They get used to the presence of any of these and then they provide no deterrence :-)

It is too much bother for me to mix up some stinky homemade spray deterrent so I use Plantskydd. It lasts for 4-6 weeks and has an oil base so resistant to rain and irrigation. It does smell after you spray but incredibley effective!

Deer in my area seem to be flower lovers. They will routinely eat the flowers or flowerbuds off of anything they can reach - hydrangeas, poppies, geum, lilies, viburnums, snapdagons, hardy geraniums, crocosmia, schizostylis, raspberries, tomatoes, sweet peas. And if they could reach them, the hostas and heucheras. They have only ignored hellebores and euphorbias. And ornamental grasses

Loving all these comments. Great Info. Want to add an idea I recently read: bubble wrap! I could imagine it scaring them off when they step on it.

Good times!

Plantskydd works well for me also. Another is the Indian spice Asafoetida powder -- but it doesn't last as long. I have to get these out and get spraying as soon as this spell of rain ends.

We have a remarkably large herd for my suburban (but surrounded by development) neighborhood. We have a ravine, a close by RR track, and a large green space on a residential school property that provides space for them, but clearly not enough for the population so no one is able to escape the ravaging horde.

There is a tendency for club foot in the herd also that we see on several adults and fawns. I wonder if the result of inbreeding.

So far the netting strung around my dormant potted fruit trees has protected them, but it needs to come off before they leaf out. I keep my blueberries under a gazebo frame strung with netting. I should have taller fencing all around the entire back yard soon though; there are just 3 gaps left and they do defeat the makeshift barriers in those spots from time to time.

In the past they've eaten the entire strawberry patch the ground, pulled all the apples off the trees (and spat them out because they were bagged), and in winter eaten the branches of the young fruit trees back to the trunk.

In the front they have eaten the tips off all the hydrangeas, and already have mown down the emerging tulips, columbine (which I haven't seen them eat before) and just overnight decimated the dutch iris. Haven't touched the daffodils or hellebore.

I have concluded that deer eat anything. This winter they ate all the leaves off of all my evergreen epimediums even though these are as thorny as holly leaves. Incidentally, they trimmed all my holly trees as well.

It depends a lot on what natural food they have available but I agree that they can eat just about anything! The only things they haven't at least sampled in my garden has been ornamental grasses, euphorbias, hellebores, culinary sage and rosemary. They tend not to eat rhododendrons, holly, laurel and most conifers here but I wouldn't say they won't :-)

Interestingly, they left the heucheras completely alone (3 years!) until last month. And then I went out one morning and every single leaf was gone, just leaving the stems poking out around the crown like a rosette. This was right next to a patch of epimediums which they left untouched....go figure!!

Thank gawd for Plantskydd!! I wouldn't have any garden without it!!

They do eat almost anything, including rhododendrons, holly, mountain laurel here in New England. The only thing they have never touched is pachysandra. I do use Liquid Fence and it works very well as long as I keep up with it once a month or so. Wish I'd known about it when this deer infestation first started where I live.

I'll go along with ginny on the pachysandra. That and the hellebores are the main plants they haven't eaten and they even bit off hellebore leaves on occasion but leave them lying . Saw this morning they had even tried to brouse some lycoris and daffodils but apparently then spit out the stuff they bit off.

After many discussions about deer on these forums, I have concluded that east coast deer have different appetites from west coast deer :-) But on either coast they are a PITA!!

Yup....just added a ton of heuchera to my backyard shade garden and they were all sampled. And hostas are like crack to deer. the plant i recommend for shade gardens is astilbe. Everytime i identify that a plant is deer food i just replace it with another variety of astilbe or with ferns. They also sampled my foamflower and lamiums!! for filler i use alot of caladiums. Nothing eats caladiums as they are toxic. Just keep your pets from nibbling on them. I am going to try some of these liquid fence products u guys r talking about because i would like to have greater variety and i spent a ton$$$ on all these new plants. Otherwise my entire back yard is going to be astilbe......which really wouldnt be so bad as astilbe are freakin awesome.

I wish you and your astilbe luck. I just moved mine inside a fenced area because deer started nibbling them.

peace