Deer as Dreaded Dinner Guests

Last Thursday, I counted more than forty blooms on my hydrangeas. By Saturday, all the flowers were missing as well as most of the leaves. These were shrubs that I had propagated four years ago from cuttings – my babies. They were protected, or so I thought, by an assortment of wire cages fashioned from leftover sections of assorted farm fencing. Everything outside the wire barriers was gone, decimated by hungry deer. The loss made me wonder why I stubbornly persist in growing deer candy: hydrangeas, hostas, daylilies.

Deer populations are becoming concentrated as native habitats are being cleared for new housing construction. I am happy for them to live in my woodlands and eat all my acorns, but I really, really want them to leave my cultivated garden areas alone. There are many recommended deer deterrents to be found across the internet. I have tried Irish Spring soap, human hair, and motion-activated sprinklers. None of these have succeeded in my garden. My growing areas are too large and too far apart to make fencing (electrified or traditional) practical. Applications of Milorganite® and stinky products like LiquidFence® are effective, but they must be reapplied after every rain.

The use of plants with strong scents can be as effective as chemical repellants. Lavender, society garlic (Tulbaghia), blue star flower (Ipheion), rosemary, catmint, marigolds, lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), yew (Cephalotaxus) and boxwood (Buxus) can be incorporated into mixed beds. Deer also avoid butterfly bush (Buddleia), beauty berry (Callicarpa), lamb’s ears, hellebores, salvias, and bearded iris.

Deer are creatures of habit. Once they have an established travel pattern, they tend to walk the same paths daily. If this path coincides with cultivated garden beds, those beds will be browsed regularly. Anything to disrupt the regular route will steer them away from the garden. This can be a physical deterrent like fencing or something a little more mundane. If you do not use the clumping form of kitty litter, empty your cat’s litterbox along the track, and encourage your dogs to defecate in the vicinity.

Despite deterrents, repellants, and specific plant choices, remember that a starving deer will eat anything, including the plants listed above. And tastes vary. What some groups of deer will avoid, other herds will gobble up. It’s enough to turn a vegetarian gardener into a venison-lover.

My cherished hydrangeas

Hosta for dessert

What Ate My Plant - Deer or Rabbit?

Why are deer such jerks? Last week, I planted 74 new hydrangeas. That is 74 baby plants that I took as cuttings at exactly the right ripeness, dusted with growth hormone, and inserted into the perfect growing medium. I nurtured them tenderly through the rooting stage, keeping them moist (but not wet) and warm (but not hot). When they struck roots, I moved them lovingly to larger pots and encouraged them with liquid fertilizer until they were big enough to transplant outdoors. My vision was to create a hydrangea forest on one side of the driveway. Two days after I planted them in the soil, I drove by and interrupted a deer feast. One deer stopped directly in front of my car, a tender plant still dangling from her lips like a cigarette, and gave me the stink-eye, as if to say, “Hey, we’re eating here. Go away.”

I had the advantage of witnessing my destroyers, but how does a gardener know what is eating their precious plants if the perpetrator is not caught in the act?  If the damage is above three feet from soil level, it is likely deer-induced. Rabbits nibble at lower levels and are more likely to gnaw bark. Favorite trees include oaks, sugar maples and ironwood. They destroy beans and other vegetables but tend to leave corn, squash and pepper plants alone. Deer can damage tree bark when they rub the velvet off their antlers, but the damage is higher than a rabbit’s and may even show the rub pattern. Rabbits favor new, tender growth while deer are less discriminating and will rip a sample bite from anything in their travel path. It’s like Saturday at the Costco sample kiosks during our pre-COVID days.

The most tell-tale indicator is the edge of the nibbled leaves. If the leaf or stem is severed in a clean edge, your destroyer is of the rabbit ilk. Think of Bugs Bunny* and his nice set of sharp choppers. If the leaves are torn and ragged, it is a deer. Deer do not have upper front teeth so they rip off leaves with their lips, leaving a ragged edge.

Deer scat and rabbit scat are both round pellets, but deer leave theirs in piles (especially when they encounter an electric fence) while rabbits scatter theirs around a bit. The size of the deposit can provide a diagnostic.

There are other culprits. If stems are severed at ground level, suspect cutworms, especially early in the growing season. If leaves show a perfect semi-circular missing section but no other damage, it could be a leaf-cutter bee. Groundhogs (woodchucks) trample the plants on which they feed. Squirrels and chipmunks prefer sweet treats, fruits like strawberries or tomatoes.

If you need positive identification, set up a wildlife camera. A cheaper alternative is to sprinkle powdered limestone on the ground around the plants where damage is occurring. You can usually see animal footprints in the powder the following morning.

So, how do you deter these eating monsters? Theories and products abound. I have tried many of them, with limited success. My best solution to date is a big, honking ugly electric fence that is ten feet tall with a tight woven mesh added along the bottom section. My least successful treatment was hanging bars of Irish Spring soap in my orchard trees. Deer nibbled on the bars of soap before they moved onto my apples. Also, the motion-activated garden sprinkler seemed to attract more deer than it deterred. “Hey everybody, there’s a water party in the Snoddy’s orchard, starting at nightfall. See you there!” It was frustrating to the point of transforming me into Elmer Fudd.*

If you choose to consult Google for a deterrent, please add the following term after your search words:  site:.edu (The word site, following by colon, no space, dot, edu). This phrase will restrict your responses to fact-based information provided by university research and filter out the advertisements and colloquial advice.

*Note: My apologies for the references to Warner Brothers cartoon characters. With our current social distancing, I am watching more television. The Cartoon Network is more soothing than the news channels. If you Gen-Z folks don’t recognize the references, go ask your parents. Or grandparents.

This photo shows a deer’s skull and jawbone. The absence of lower front teeth produces the tell-tale identifier of torn leaves. (I did not shoot this deer. But I didn’t weep over his demise, either.)

This stub is all that remains of what was a healthy foot-tall plant two days earlier.

A common characteristic of deer damage is an uprooted plant, especially if the plant is found to be unpalatable.