Deer in your area must be really hungry to go after daylily leaves and take an entire plant out of the ground! How frustrating! I hope the rest of your new plants will be OK. The bat is a visitor I wouldn't like to see under my umbrella. Best wishes on planting in your new garden area!

Debra

What an adventure. Your deer are such pests.

Brad

After an abnormally wet July, August was hot and dry. So hot and so dry that many of my daylilies went summer dormant. One tiny rain event and up they pop like spring. Guess what also popped out to eat this new foliage!! I have also had them to pull newly planted plants out of the ground but never lost one as you did!

We once had an old barn on our property and with it came bats! They came out at dusk and I did not mind as they are voracious insect feeders (think mosquitos!!) When the barn collasped so did the bat population. I liked having them control the mosquitos but would never want them that close to me!!!

It is not a matter of hunger. The deer predation was worst during the excessive rain of late June/early July. At one site, I probably will no longer be able to grow daylilies. I wonder if Houzz messaging no longer works, as Kate has not answered a message. Debra has not responded to an NGA message of many days ago.

Not only do I not have your message, Mantis but all my previous messages are gone.

I have to admit when opening the umbrellas yesterday morning I was a bit scared and glad to see no bat. Fingers crossed no bat today.

I got all six new arrivals planted, mulched and cloched yesterday. Sprayed the entire garden again last night. . We are suppose to get rain today but I highly doubt it will actually rain. Most storms fizzle out before hitting our area lately. This year we do have an increase in deer and especially the fawns.

mantis: sad that you have to give up growing daylilies in an area because of the deer. I told my daughter that I should be hired by Proven Winners to give first hand accounts of what is really "deer resistant" plants. So many that PW sells say 'deer resistant' but I've found they are not.

Julia

Julia, so true. It is shocking how many plants are not deer resistant. The deer even eat iris and peonies late in the season. The rough-leafed rudbeckia seem to be a favorite, even when soaked in repellent.

Kate, my question was about Flying Fox. You initially pictured it with glowing reviews, but I haven't seen you picture it for a few years. I especially wonder if scapes have been short for you. (Or anything else you wish to relate.)

mantis: add sedum to the deer dining. Last night I noticed they were nibbling on that so it go sprayed along with all the other plants. Only plant they haven't tried is marigolds and lantana...knock on wood.

Julia

How frustrating with the deer. Can you use electric fencing to help?.......It's too bad that the animals listed on the "deer or rabbit proof" labels don't know how to read English..............My head knows that bats are good insect fighters. My heart however says COVER YOUR HAIR!!!!..............What kind of cloches do you use btw. I use the chicken wire ones from Gardener's Supply and couldn't do without them (my critter problem being rabbits)..............Maryl

I went to see if mine went up in price from Gardener's Supply and they say they are shut down for remodeling. Hummmm. I'm glad I got a couple extra this spring.........Yours look sturdy and serviceable btw. We'd have to do measurements to see if there are differences. I sure have used mine a lot over the years...........Maryl

Have you looked for garden cloches at Walmart on line? Seems reasonable. I buy a lot of stuff from Walmart on line and it is almost always cheaper than Amazon or elsewhere.

https://www.walmart.com/search?q=garden%20cloche%20plant%20protectors&typeahead=garden%20cloche

Brad

I just ordered through Wayfair 10 more for my gardens. I can use the extras for next seasons veggie garden start-up.

I'm still waiting on two sellers to ship my orders. One will be shipping next week and the other I haven't seen any ship date yet although I need to followup again with her. The window for getting any new plants in the ground before first frost is closing so I'm trying to get as much moved around as possible this year while finishing other things that need to get done.

Julia

Zone 7a and you think the window is closing? I'd say that in a normal year (is there such a thing anymore?), you can easily plant till the end of September. We are so warm and dry for the coming week here.

mantis: Yes.Our first frost for our area is predicted for mid to late October. I like to have at least a month and a half for the plants to be in the ground before first frost. No adequate rain here and any storms predicted have been going around us.

Julia

Lots of work, Julia, going to be beautiful! I look forward to seeing pictures of everything next year! We have bats here, not sure where they stay, but there are small caves in the area near the creek. between bats and martins, I hardly ever see mosquitoes. Suprisingly, I got attacked a few nights ago though. Can't imagine where they got water to grow in. We have not had rain here in about 5 weeks, and no real chance the next week last time I saw weather report. I say I got no rain, but I did get maybe .10" last week. Did not really wet the ground good. I don't water much, and am surprised most of my daylilies look pretty good. I have planted into November here and not had any losses overwinter. Been a while since I have tried that though, newer daylilies are not so forgiving as the older ones I was planting then.

Nancy: I do hope all the work I'm putting into this new expanded space works out. All the plants I'm putting in the ground are new for me so they are the only ones that I water. I'm waiting for some adequate rain to move a couple daylilies that have been here to a new spot. I have other perennials I wanted to divide and move but will have to wait. We have rain predicted for this coming week so we shall see if we actually get it.

Julia

Our bats left in August, migratory....we have one that hangs under a rain gutter.

I see that a suburb of Columbus (OH) is now hiring sharpshooters to reduce the deer population in the city. It seems that this past year brought especially bad predation elsewhere also. My own personal garden (with yard enclosed in netting or neighbor's fence) had no issues with deer.