We might as well admit it. The battle with Bambi is one we won’t win. And since Bambi doesn’t negotiate, we can’t even hope for a cease-fire. The best we can do is adopt a few defensive strategies and learn to accept our losses. After all, we started it.
Yes, it’s the deer that attack, by chewing our yews and chomping our corn. But we’re the ones who killed off wolves and the other natural predators of deer while also turning woods and prairies into shopping centers, houses and roads.
In addition, by fragmenting their habitat, we have increasingly brought deer into our midst. How so? Deer are “edge” creatures that prefer to live in the outskirts of forests, not the deep woods. Therefore, as we’ve built developments within the woodlands, we’ve actually created more forest edges for them to inhabit.
Joan and Gary Gand, whose north suburban house sits on a clearing in the woods, have been living life “on the edge” for nearly 15 years. “The deer love daylilies and eat them first,” says Joan. “They start chomping off leaf tips as soon as plants emerge in spring.” Hostas, phlox, roses, plants in the lily family and anything with lots of water in the stems and leaves are other favorites. The Gands observe that deer usually ignore strong-scented plants such as herbs.
Certainly the first line of defense is to use plants “not favored by deer,” the phrase of choice in The Morton Arboretum “Tree and Shrub Handbook” (Morton Arboretum, $45). Here you will find 170 plants, from trees to annuals, that deer generally avoid. However, as Kris Bachtell, director of collections and grounds at the arboretum, explains, “Deer will eat just about anything–even buckthorn–if they’re hungry enough and their habitat has been depleted of food.”
Still, it’s good to know that common favorites such as barberry, forsythia, lilac, honeysuckle, daffodils, ageratum, larkspur, marigold, hibiscus, iris, astilbe, basil and chives are on the deer’s “less preferred” list.
Repellents are another option. Nurseries sell packaged formulas, but gardeners have used such household items as scented soap, cayenne pepper, garlic, mothballs, rotten eggs, shampoo and tobacco. Other possibilities are human hair, vacuum cleaner contents, predator urine (yes, you can buy this), dried blood, or Milorganite, which is composted sewage sludge.
Bill Adler, in “Outwitting Deer” (Lyons Press, $14.95), provides recipes for smelly homemade concoctions and lists a number of commercial repellents (some with cute names such as “Not Tonight Deer” or “N.I.M.B.Y.”) followed by consumer testimonials.
Some repellents are sprayed directly on the plants and others are placed nearby. Most must be replenished after every rain.
Noisemakers, lights or sprinklers that switch on via motion detectors may work, at least until the local deer get used to them. Various types of mesh or protective netting may work too.
However, nothing is foolproof. The Gands first tried various home remedies, then turned to commercial preparations. They used two more or less successfully for several years, although one needed to be reapplied after rains.
Last year, they finally resorted to the solution everyone knows is the best: a fence. But even a fence won’t work if it’s not high enough.
Marty Jones, Urban Deer Project manager with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, explains that to deter our local whitetail deer, 8 feet is usually sufficient but only a 10-foot fence is truly deerproof.
Local ordinances, however, may limit how tall a fence can go.
An electric fence, which administers an unpleasant but harmless shock that can train deer to avoid the fenced area or dogs to stay in it, is another possibility. But deer can charge through and break it since it’s hard to see.
More visible is a new product called poly tape or “hot tape,” which resembles the webbing in a lawn chair and contains small interwoven electric wires. One strand 30 inches off the ground can be effective around a small area, says Jones.
The fourth option is to get a loud barking dog. This often works, although it may not please your neighbors. It’s the one alternative Joan and Gary Gand didn’t try.
But for now, their solution is working. “The first thing we did after we put up the fence was to plant roses and hosta,” says Joan gleefully.
———-
The Morton Arboretum “Tree and Shrub Handbook” ($45) is available at the arboretum, Illinois Highway 53 and Interstate Highway 88, Lisle; call 630-719-2465.
The Willowbrook Wildlife Center of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County has free pamphlets on living with deer and other kinds of wildlife, such as opossums, raccoons and squirrels; call 630-942-6200.
