If you’ve toiled over your garden all summer, the last thing you want to see is plants, shrubs and trees destroyed by deer. Deer like many of the same things we like to grow: ornamental flowers, trees, shrubs, and garden vegetables. What are the most effective ways to keep them at bay?
If the deer are visiting your yard every single night, your strategy is going to be different than a once a month deer visitation, according to Emma Erler, host of Homegrown NH and lead horticulturist at Kirkwood Gardens at Squam Lakes Natural Science Center.
If the deer are only occasional visitors in your yard, you can try deer repellents.
A contact repellent is applied directly to the plant itself. Usually these are things that taste bad to the deer, so it might be really spicy hot, with capsaicin in it from peppers, or it might have a smell that is off-putting to a deer.
Unfortunately, these are not nice for us to smell either, so Erler recommends putting those on plants that are not too close to your house. “And I only really bother trying to use those if the deer aren't too much of an issue,” she says.
An area repellent is something you put in the general vicinity of your plants. A classic area repellent is a bar of Irish Spring soap that you hang from a shrub in your yard. That might work if the deer have plenty to eat in the surrounding area.
Putting a fence around your garden is probably the best way to keep deer off of your property, and Erler says it needs to be at least eight feet tall. “Deer can jump really high,” says Erler. “That eight foot mark is just a little bit too much for them, so they won't be able to clear that fence and get into your garden. That's probably the most effective way to keep deer out.”
If you have an individual plant that a deer is munching on, you can put an individual fence or cage around it with chicken wire or another small mesh, as long as there's plenty of other things for them to eat.
If you're not worried about pets or children in your yard, electric fencing can work for deer, and it is employed in agriculture, but it can be used in the home garden as well.
There are some plants that deer tend to like less than others, like an aromatic perennial such as yarrow, mint or thyme.
“No plant is entirely deer proof,” says Erler. “If a deer is hungry enough, they will eat just about anything that's green and growing.”
See you in the garden!
Homegrown New Hampshire is a collaboration between Squam Lakes Natural Science Center and NHPR.
