'horticultural how-to and woo-woo' | margaret roach, head gardener
I GARDENED WITH THE DEER FOR NEARLY A DECADE, and then I said no more. I’d sprayed, sachet-ed, blood-mealed and Milorganite-d myself into a meltdown; I just couldn’t wrap or pen or hang aluminum pie-plate mobiles or otherwise defend individual plants any longer. After all, the deer would just eat whatever wasn’t “protected,” being indiscriminate feeders who were happy to move on to the next course as the previous runs out. So I finally fenced. expandable metal
Fencing is the only real deer-proofing method there is (assuming your fence is the right construction for your location and animal population, and is well-maintained). No other tactic offers complete control, keeping deer out of the garden.
Even “deerproof” plants had proved deer-resistant at best, and besides, the garden-design limitations such lists impose provide insufferable restriction for someone like me, who can’t resist a hot plant. I’m as much an omnivore as the deer; we just couldn’t cohabitate peacefully.
The garden’s backbone—its woody plants—were being disfigured. Forget the occasional hosta stripped of its leaves (above); ugly, yes, but it sent up new growth relatively fast. The deer damage to woody plants I’d invested money and then time in (waiting for them to go from $30 youngsters to a real part of the landscape) was mounting fast. Some viburnums, in particular, had taken multiple hits and were beyond corrective-pruning rehab, as were many evergreen hollies—two of my favorite genera of shrubs.
The cost exceeded the actual plant-specific losses, too: All those half-effective potions and gadgets, and the time it took to use them, were pricey.
And finally, one day, I looked out the window and realized this: I garden largely to enjoy viewing the landscape I have created, not to view a bunch of vulnerable specimens each encased in their own private cages, like a military encampment of impromptu tents and tee-pees pitched here and there in a time of battle. It was a sad sight. Enough.
F IRST in my exploration, I turned to scientists and agricultural experts (not garden-product marketers), always my preferred first step. To choose a style of fence that will work for your garden locale, you need information about the local deer species, their habits, and their capabilities (read: how high can they jump, and how low will they go).
Managing deer in a suburban environment can vary greatly from doing so in a rural one; hilly terrain and flat land each has its challenges. And so on. A comprehensive book by Neil Soderstrom, “Deer-Resistant Landscaping” (Amazon affiliate link), walks you through how to analyze your situation on all these fronts; suggests numerous plants that offer resistance, and covers 20 other animal pests and many anti-deer tactics other than fencing. I can speak only from my own experience; the book didn’t exist when I was experimenting here myself.
Great resources for location-specific insights: your cooperative extension (find yours); a nearby botanical garden or conservation organization (I relied initially on research that was then available from nearby Cary Institute of Ecocsystems Studies at first); or agricultural organizations like this one that compiles information that is product-agnostic, like this one.
Or start with this primer on protecting plants from deer from Ohio State’s wildlife program specialist Marne Titchenell. From such sources, I quickly learned that fence could be of several classes and complexities:
I also learned a few more things, some of them the hard way:
It wasn’t until years later, on a trip to the hillside Northern California of salvia expert Betsy Clebsch, that I learned how two rows of low fencing situated parallel to each other will also work: specifically, two 4′ tall fences spaced 5′ apart.
The gap between is too wide for jumping (and deer hate entering an enclosed space, anyhow, that “reads” as if they might get trapped). But the gap’s big enough for your wheelbarrow and mower (or you can plant it, a garden ringing the garden).
This is a great solution for small gardens or areas near the house where a tall fence would be unsightly. It creates a space like the old-fashioned dooryard garden, but with two rows of fence. A more impromptu, agricultural-application double-fence method could be created with moveable electric fencing panels, too, like the material sold as sheep fencing. One caveat: If you have heavy deer pressure, plan to put low fences up quickly, all at once. Don’t let the animals get accustomed to a piece here or there, and adapt; change their pattern of movement once only, for good.
A final possibility is growing a living deer-proof fence, or a hedge too wide to jump, from willows, says longtime plantsman Michael Dodge. Best deer-resistant Salix, for fencing and hedging (a.k.a. fedges), he says: “The S. purpurea willows are deer-resistant, and great for a fedge or fence. Even gracilis or nana makes a dense bush, 4 by 4 feet, that they won’t jump over.”
M Y PROPERTY is bordered on three sides by state parkland and forest, so I was able to make good use of the natural treeline as part camouflage and part support for my fence. That really influenced my choice of a high mesh barrier.
On the front boundary (top photo), where I did not wish to have the caged-in look of a very high fence, I fashioned a modified double fence. I used 6-foot posts between each piece of picket fencing (detail, above), and strung the poly mesh reinforced with high-tensile wire (not electrified) to reinforce the top. Outside that layer, a three-strand trip wire (also not electrified) on low posts forms the “other” fence (below).
My own fence journey has had two major phases: First, after that initial research, I used polypropylene mesh. I got very good, but not complete, control from this 7.5-foot material for about six years, until one too many animal had run into it or limb had fallen on it. Not the material’s fault, though.
I failed to reinforce the mesh with several strands of high-tensile wire running horizontally through the top, bottom and middle. Today, in one spot where I use this system (above), I have it properly reinforced, as in the photo above (and also flapped and pinned down at ground level with earth staples to prevent invasions from below, as I always did according to product directions). Note: This is not bird netting, but heavy poly with larger openings.
Once the poly had done its service, I switched to woven wire (below), a very heavy 8-foot-tall metal material. Sliding farm gates on rollers span both my driveways (above): ugly, yes, but not as ugly as what the deer would do to me. Nobody’s been in since; well, nobody except the frogboys, but they don’t eat much in the way of shrubbery.
(Oh, and in 2014, an adult black bear did climb the metal gate to have a hot-tub-like dip in my water garden, and basically check the place out. Probably no fence that’s going to help me prevent that. The usual bobcat and fox visits I don’t mind a bit.)
I F YOU ARE insistent on going fenceless, I suggest doing some homework. Again, read this interview with the Ohio State specialist on basic deer-fighting tactics. And then study up about plants that might stand up to the pressure. I love the Rutgers search tool that rates plants by their appeal (or lack of appeal) to deer (sample result below); other university extensions have lists and charts to offer for other regions.
Ruth Rogers Clausen’s book “50 Beautiful Deer-Resistant Plants” (Amazon affiliate link) is another popular resource by a serious plant person and longtime garden writer. No way I’m sticking to 50, though, so please: Do fence me in.
Thanks for showing how you deer-proofed your garden. I would like to do something to keep deer out of my front yard eventually, but we’re in a suburban neighborhood and I can’t see fencing it to the necessary height. Plus we have a circular driveway, so that makes it even harder. At least the fenced back yard is deer-proof. I would go nuts if I had them in the front *and* the back.
Margaret, I am so glad I found your WAY TO GARDEN! Wherever you find a gardener, whether tending a window box in an apartment dwelling or a large acreage in a rural area, you will find some common ground and a WAY TO SPEAK. But you will find as much disagreement as agreement, and that is where the fun begins! Despite having lyme disease twice, I still havent taken the plunge with the deer fencing. I can live with the deer, but the moles and the voles and the lily beetles – now I am seeing red!!! Love your web site!
Welcome, Jayne. Hopefully you have found my mole patrol post from last year (I think I use more mousetraps than your average household, let’s just say). I am glad you have found us and hope you will be a regular. Happy spring (and tell those deer of your to BEHAVE).
@Pam: You are patient to deal with them anywhere, but at least you have the backyard. I love the “dooryard garden” type of double low fence for creating a little sanctuary in front of the house, but it doesn’t work on all terrains or with all houses. Did you and Austin survive another SXSW?
@Jonith: Yes, indeed, bullfrogs are shocking in their eating habits. Apparently they will even eat birds. Imagine my surprise the day I saw that mouse caught and took that photo. Ugh, but also nature at work.
@James: Glad to have you in the ranks of the 8-foot mesh fence types. I haven’t had one deer inside the place since, and I think it’s probably eight years now. Yes, technically they can leap over it, but as you say it depends on what’s on the other side (whether they can get a running start) and mine sounds like yours, plus it’s very un-level.
Great post here. This summer my mother and I were planning on deer-proofing her Bellingham, WA property, and this write-up will be extremely useful.
Quick note — Was initially shocked to learn that frogs occasionally eat mice and chipmunks. Then I just assumed this was the work of the mischievous English language comma. I came full circle in this thought-process when I clicked on the final embedded link. This is very surprising!
I gardening with the deer in the hamlet of Rosemont, NJ for five years. They regularly traveled through the edge of our property. I rarely had any deer damage. Then I moved four miles away into a wooded area, and found all the plants I thought were “deer proof” were happily munched by the local deer population. I, like you, finally did the scientific research, and chose an 8-foot wire mesh fence. Two years later I’ve had no incursions. I think that’s because my fence abuts forest, and the tangles of tree limbs and twigs confuse the deers’ ability to judge jumping heights. At least, that’s what my research tells me (keeping my fingers crossed).
Margaret, Great story! As one who must garden with deer, I am always interested in what gardeners are using for solutions.
I agree that fencing is the best deterrent. However, a gardener (like me) who lives in a neighborhood of strict covenants isn’t allowed to fence the property line with the kind of fence that is deer proof.
We can only use three board fence here and the deer go over and under and through.
My cottage garden fence next to the house wasn’t in the covenants, but I got by with Jerith aluminum by including it as part of my blueprints for architectural review.
I’m not in a city neighborhood either. I’m in a neighborhood of “rural” property of 4+ acres per lot on the setting of a former dairy farm. Moving isn’t an option.
So, I must garden with deer resistant plants. Yes, I miss hostas, viburnums, camellias and all the other wonderful choices that gardener’s crave. I just have no alternative. I have not resorted to deer repellants at all because I know it is too expensive and gambling. In almost 4 years of being here, my outer garden has been a success.
Bunnies are my new enemy! They found my cottage garden this winter and I have bought rabbit repellant!
Great post! Sometimes you do what you have to do when it comes to keeping critters out. This is humane and hopefully once installed, you’re finished with the problem. I bet you’re excited about planting something now that’s not so “deer proof”.
Welcome, Gardening 4 Life. Yes, almost eight years now without deer and I grow anything and everything. Only rabbits and woodchucks and moles/voles to combat in an ongoing manner. See you soon again I hope.
Happy one year anniversary! I always wondered how you handled the deer issue. After 20 years of being an avid gardener in Tenafly I finally gave up because of the deer. Town restrictions did not allow any effective fencing. Moved to the city and I really miss my garden. I live vicariously thru your website. Thanks!
Thanks! Lots of good info. Our deer are jumping our chain link so I need to somehow make it higher. This will be a good solution for the back- I’m putting in some veggie beds now so i’m even more determined! I don’t know what to do about the front… Tonka trucks in front of the bulbs used to scare them away. Not anymore!
I have had lots of luck with Deer Resistant Landscaping out of Michigan. Fences too. We are those rare gardeners who like deer andrabbits in Minnesota. My english friends have taught me to embrace all and plant natives that are not an easy target. Life is too short to stress over plants who are attractive to wildlife. My neighbors are constantly telling me they are going to train the deer to not eat their hostas. Why plant hostas when there is lambs ears.
Got any suggestions for wild boar? They’re our adversaries.
Welcome, RKenigsberg; you sound like you are much more flexible and patient than I am in such matters. :) Good for you. Hope you will visit again soon.
Welcome, Peter. Normally holly will send out another set of leaves, but it will look like hell for quite awhile. Keep eye eye on it for signs of buds breaking. I would not cut back woody tissue unless it was brittle (and obviously dead) and until after I had given it some time to recover and break from dormant buds. Hope to see you soon again.
@Kathejo: Wild WHAT? Oh, my. My metal fence would do against anything, I think (even keeps the bear out, or has so far), but boar? Yikes.
@Cameron: Are you not permitted two parallel low fences such as pickets or post and rail, but with mesh pinned on the back on the outer row? Town ordinances may not restrict the additional protection that a flap of polypropylene mesh affixed to the lower portion then draped on and pinned to the ground provides.
@Zehav: Thanks for the good wishes.
@JGH: Sounds like some high pole with a wire or mesh strung from it might give you the extra protection. I am crossing my fingers for you in your plight. :)
Last spring I planted a row of small holly bushes. They were doing very well until this winter, when the deer chomped off every leaf not covered by the snow. I was surprised to learn that deer will eat holly. Given the leaf spines, holly certainly provides them with roughage, to say the least!
You mentioned corrective pruning to address deer damage. Any suggestions for dealing with my holly? There are still leaves at the bottom of the bushes, where the snow covered them. But every upper branch is bare. Will the leaves grow back?
We started a rural garden about 2 yrs ago and brought along a Walker coonhound (one of 4 rescue dogs). She won’t hunt but she surely runs and barks (she may be on a campaign to deafen the gophers!). We are sure she is the reason we don’t have deer, elk, bear or lions visiting too closely anymore. She stays in most nights and if the barking becomes unbearable to us, one gunshot brings her home in a flash. So far her presence has kept deer out of the new orchard we have planted. Two strands of electric wire, placed low to the ground, kept raccoons out of the corn; and I am hoping a solar powered electric fence will keep bears out of the bee yard. Now I just have to solve the problem of keeping chickens out of the vegetable garden.
Welcome, Lisabeth. Good luck with those chickens…oh, my, are they inclined to go wherever they well please. I love the tales of all your animal-control tactics, and thank you for them. Hope to see you soon again, welcoming spring with us.
Thank-You so much for the information. I’m about to install a double row deer fence around a 1.5 acre area on my property, and the extra resources and photos have helped a lot. I’m also working sections of 5′ reed fence into my design. For the last year it has worked very well protecting my “plants in waiting”, and my veggie garden from the herds of deer that we have.
My new cottage is in a very congested place, I am hoping not to have any deer interactions this year, as I have collided with them in the past. Good luck to all keeping them out!!!
THanks for the advice on the holly. I’ll watch for the buds and pray! This winter the deer chomped on so many new shrubs, including a very nice euonymus bush and (I was warned about this) a hedge of yew. But all of the above were free (a long story!) so I couldn’t resist trying to see if they’d survive.
We live in NYC but have a house in Northern Columbia County, so we’ll be sure to attend the Open Gardens day in August to see your garden in person. (The photos you posted from 2008 were really beautiful!)
Thanks for sharing the deer-proofing tactics, we’re always looking for new insights into the machinations of the deer brain. We live in a deer-infested part of Victoria, British Columbia, and had many years of battling deer also (your recounting of blood meal, tin-foil plates etc brings back memories!). When I decided to start growing more food, I bit the bullet and opted to fence the back-yard. Basically, our approach is that the front yard is fair game for the deer, so we stick to things we have had success with (aromatic herbs, narcissus, rhodos, daylilies), and put the things we want to ensure don’t get nibbled in the back yard. We opted for the metal deer fencing with 2″ x 4″ mesh, attached with nail-in-staples to 4×4 pressure treated posts. it’s 6′ high, which we find is high enough to deter the deer from jumping over. There are other yards for them to move onto. We did find, however, that you need to fence everything at the same time, as they will go up and down the perimeter until they find an opening. Once they have discovered the openings are gone, they seem to move to new territory. Good luck to you — I know there is nothing more devastating than waking up one morning to discover the carnage they can inflict!
Welcome, Linda; yes, the two-part fence is one of the more attractive solutions. I like the rolls of reed and bamboo materials, too, but haven’t used the here. See you soon again.
Welcome, Janice. I agree: If you are putting up fence, put it up fast. Don’t let them figure out what’s up, and ways around it. See you soon again, I hope.
Welcome, DJ. Take a walk on the wild side, huh? Oh, my. Sorry for your losses. I do hope we will see you again and that some of the tactics suggested will help.
A friend just pointed me to this to your site today. Thanks for the tip about the second row fence. I have a 5 foot chain link that I’m trying very hard to hide behind a lot of plants. Till this past winter, this has pretty much kept the dear out of that area…well, that and my 3 dogs. This winter all the azaleas look like the ones in the unfenced front yard and I wonder if I’ll see a bloom at all. They also ate 3 of 4 sides of a Golden Euonymous and my acuba is a skeleton of its former self. Normally I love the deer and am quite forgiving of the occasional hosta or lily loss ….as long as they left the back yard alone. The moles and voles (and my dogs digging after them) have all gone particularly crazy over this past winter and decimated so many plants I was almost in tears. I began gardening for wildlife about 5 years ago, but not this wild!
Oh, knock on wood because there haven’t been any deer yet – but I would give up my right arm for a way to keep the resident ground hog or wood-chuck or whatever it is out of my garden. Besides mowing down the vegetable garden and herb garden several times, he also ate all my marigolds (marigolds?!!) and stole my fiancee’s flip flop and hid it (to be fair I suppose, the flip flop was first thrown at him in a fit of despair as he munched our tomatoes)
Oh dear. I don’t look forward to that again.
I might get an apossum fence for here in Lincoln (the apossum capital of the world).
I live on The North Shore of Chicago where EVERYTHING is highly controlled. I would dearly (;-D) love to fence out the deer but cannot. My solution and it has been 100% is a “Wireless Deer Fence”. It’s a plastic post with a yummy scent on the end which lures the deer and then zaps them in the nose when they touch it. (I have touched it and it’s not a lethal dose, but I’m sure it’s painful on the nose.) I use it on the foundation plantings around the house, so the house is the “back” of the fence. Evidently they learn to stay away when they see the little posts. I use deer netting around the tomato/annual/rose garden in the summer. Once the plants come up it’s nearly invisible and nothing the neighbors can complain about. And since we are the only ones on the street who have any flowers in the summer, I doubt they would anyway! You’d think being in such a populated area that we wouldn’t have many varmints, but we have quite a herd of deer who pass through the yard at least twice a day. I saw a possum the other night -and- a coyote this afternoon!
The deer ate part of my new rose bush this year! (the only thing I had not wrapped with wire fencing to keep them away – the wrapping works well for me). Any suggestions on reviving it? do i just cut away the dead parts?
We have not had much Deer Damage for two years now until this winter. lots of deer traffic and a lot of damage. They must have had a bad winter also. Last year I grew “Deer Trees”. That’s what you get when you cut down a large tree and leave the stump to grow again. The Deer love the nice fresh leaves and do not seem to care about our gardens. Will be cutting back the Deer Trees again this spring to see if I can get them to try again, the root systems soon exhaust and stop trying to grow new trees. Pine, spruce and the like do not work. No New deer trees this year have not cut down any large trees. Expect I will have to Fence off some of the raised beds, have all the stuff to do it . Worked last time they attached my veggies.
We have a few thousand acres around us that are Town Forests and other wood and wet lands. Can’t control what goes on out there. Whatever works best under your circumstances is what you have to do. John
Very useful, since I just realized that the deer are the reason my rosa rubrifolia doesn’t bloom much, and that there will be no azalea flowers this spring. Arggh. Last year they nearly killed the evergreen shrubs, but I fenced them off individually, so they moved on to new things. We didn’t have deer. We had coyotes and hunters, but the hunters shoot the coyotes, and every year there are fewer of both and more deer. The picket fence in front, plastic mesh in back looks like an affordable solution and will also restrain snowmobilers.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
...and my ribbiting free newsletter.
We won’t send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time.
My picks of garden gear, books, and mulch, mulch more, all things I use myself. (Disclosure: includes affiliate links.)
Affiliate Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
THE LECTURE that he’s been giving for a number of years is not-so-subtly called “Kill Your Lawn.” Ecological horticulturist Dan Jaffe Wilder knows that starting over and creating an entire native habitat instead of a lawn isn’t for everyone. But Dan just wants to grab our attention and get us to start to make some changes at least in the way we care for the turfgrass we do want in our landscapes. And maybe give up a little square footage of it to some other kind of more diverse planting, too, like the wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana, inset). Alternative, more eco-focused styles of lawn care, along with some lawn alternatives is what he and I talked about on the podcast. Dan is Director of Applied Ecology at Norcross Wildlife Foundation in Wales, Massachusetts, and its 8,000-acre sanctuary. He’s also co-author with Mark Richardson of the book “Native Plants for New England Gardens.”
(Stream it below, read the illustrated transcript or subscribe free.)
Welcome! I’m Margaret Roach, a leading garden writer for 30 years—at ‘Martha Stewart Living,’ ‘Newsday,’ and in three books. Since April 2020, I have been the garden columnist for “The New York Times,” where I began my journalism career decades ago. I host a public-radio podcast; I also lecture, plus hold tours at my 2.3-acre Hudson Valley (NY) Zone 5B garden in “normal” years, and always say no to chemicals and yes to great plants.
flat bar grating Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Press Esc to cancel.