The deer may not be finished with your garden yet. Remember, colder weather takes away much of their food and when they are hungry, they'll remember where they found food this past summer.

I didn't want to block the view either, Lavender; so I went to HD and bought rolls of 3 ft. high black wire fencing, which has openings about 4"x6". Then after I nailed it (using little fence staples) to the posts, I also added a 1-ft. high double protection along the bottom, of chicken wire, against the bunnies. Then I saw the size of the deer hanging around down in the wetlands below the yard, and put ANOTHER roll above the first one, for a total height of 6 ft. I've read that they can jump over anything up to 8 ft., but if they clear my fence, they're welcome to eat whatever they want, since they'll be on their way to become Olympic stars.

As for weeds, no problem if you hoe the beds right up to the fence (on the inside) and mulch heavily there, and weed-whack the grass right up to the fence (on the outside). You might want to change your bed layout and put some beds directly against the inside boundary of your potager.

Also, the open wire allowed as much sun as possible to come through. And the 4-6' tall fence posts are good for climbing roses.

Carol

The only problem with a really tall fence...is that the deer will walk past the kitchen garden and go eat my roses in the other gardens! LOL

Right now, they're pretty happy with the kitchen garden, but except for the roses and a few raspberries, there's not much they really want to eat. Since I moved most of the roses up against the arbor with the two benches, they haven't touched them. I put some lavender and herbs in front of the roses, but they're still pretty small. The other day, there were deer tracks on the corner of the bed, they had taken a bite of the bee balm and left. So, apparently any kind of barrier is better than nothing :)

Right now, I have beds that are too deep around the perimeter of the garden. I'm hoping the fence will not only divide the bed down the middle, but also make it easier to maintain the garden. On the outside is mostly fruit and perennials, with the inside beds more for annnual vegetables and flowers.

I still have the arbor in the middle, where I put the clematis (with the roses and herbs) on one half...and the new area (where the bird bath is in the picture) is going to get four small beds for mini-veggies and two more arches, for climbing beans.

Anyway, what do you think about the lattice fence? I know it's short, but I was hoping I could use it for a fence and maybe for a bit of a trellis too, for peas, cukes, clematis, etc. I can always put a wire above the top, to make the "trellis" part a little taller, but I don't want the lattice so tall that it starts blocking the views, when someone's sitting down at the arbor.

Thanks for the tips about the wire. I'm still considering that as a possibility, too :)

Here's the same old picture of my garden, but it shows the areas I'm talking about. I was hoping to take new pictures today, but it was too cold after work. I'll try to get out there earlier, tomorrow.

{{gwi:243812}}

Any fence less than 6 ft tall is a total waste of money if you are hoping to control the deer in any way.

In some areas, 6 ft of fence isn't tall enough.

I use game fence, which is 6 1/2 ft tall and has squares that are 6 inches. Then the bottom has to be covered with chicken wire to keep the bunnies out.

That stops my deer and it can be seen through so the view isn't hidden.

You can use electric fence wire and you can see through that.

The heavier grade of deer netting might work. I suspect they'd walk right through the lighter weight stuff.

If you have some other use for a short fence, that's fine. But if you expect it to stop any critters of any kind, save your money, because it won't stop anything.

My area is chuck full of fences that are 4 ft or 5 ft tall, topped by extension poles and another couple of feet of wire. People put in fence, hoping to keep the deer out, and then discover that the fence must be much much higher, so they add onto the top. It would have saved them money and looked a lot better if they'd installed the fence correctly the first time.