If you live in an area with a high deer population, you know the damage they can do to landscaped shrubs and trees while trying to find enough food during the winter. The deer can’t help being hungry, but that doesn’t stop us from getting upset when we find our bushes and trees and have destroyed by foraging animals. There are different ways from protecting your plants from hungry deer. The most obvious of course, is surrounding your yard with an 8-foot deer fence. However, if you have a large yard this may not be economically feasible. You could also try planting some of the plants that deter deer – either because of their smell, taste, or because they are spiky and poky. However, those plants that go dormant or die off in the winter, probably won’t do you a whole lot of good. Fir or spruce trees would make a great natural fence to keep deer out, but this also probably is not economically feasible. So what can a person do? There are 3 main ways in which to keep deer from eating your shrubs: repel, protect, and distract.
There are many different products on the market designed to repel deer from trees. Generally, these products contain a scent that will scare deer off. These types of products can be applied to the tree or shrub itself and the area right around it. There are literally dozens of different kinds of deer repellents on the market, and everyone has their own personal favorite. Talk to people you knows about what they recommend. Talk to the salespeople at the store; find out what it is a good seller, and whether or not the product is guaranteed. Get some good recommendations before buying anything. You may then want to purchase a few different repellents and use each one in a different area of your yard, making sure you know which area you used each product in so that you can accurately compare how well each product works.
The second way to keep deer from eating your bushes, shrubs, trees or other plants is to protect the individual plants or groups of plants. To do this you don’t have to surround the entire yard with a fence, just those plants that would be most susceptible to becoming deer food. There are many different kinds of fences you can put up around trees. Of course these will cost you more than repellents, but you are practically assured better results as long as you keep the fences in good repair by checking them regularly to make sure nothing has been damaged or knocked down. You can use long wooden spikes or re-bar to hold up chicken or rabbit wire around the bushes and high enough so that a deer would not be able to reach in. You may also find special wood and wire fences made specifically for keeping deer away from trees, these can also be used around small bushes and shrubs. Just make sure you find ones that are tall enough that a deer won’t be able to bend over and munch on your plants. You can also use netting to cover bushes and shrubs. Anything that can be used to come in between the deer and the shrub is a form of protection.
The final way to protect your shrubs is to distract the deer by giving them something else to eat. Combining this with either of the other strategies above is going to increase your success rate. Deer get hungry in the winter when there is a lack of food around, this is simply a fact of life. Providing easy access food to the deer in a location away from what you want to protect, will help you, and the deer out greatly. If you have access to oak trees, gather acorns in the fall to store for winter feeding. Deer also like beechnuts and hickory nuts. Deer eat many crop products such as clover, alfalfa, corn, oats, soybeans, peas, sweet potatoes and apples so if you have access to these products, or just plain hay, try leaving them in a safe place for the deer to have access. If you do this however, you need to make sure you do it all winter long. Once the deer are used to coming to your house for food, they will continue to do it. Make sure there is food there for them you want them to eat so they won’t start eating on things you don’t want them to eat. This way you can enjoy watching the deer as they come to your yard to feed without having to worry about them damaging anything on your property.
