Your garden is a place of rest and you probably spend lots of time making it a beautiful location. However, many things can spoil your little area of tranquillity. One of these might be deer. Deer can cause significant damage to a garden and therefore, learning how to deter deer from your garden can be an important step to protect your garden. In this article, we will cover this subject.
What Damage Can Deer Cause
Deer play an important part in our ecosystems. However, that doesn’t mean that they don’t cause some damage in the process. Deer are known to eat plants, which can be almost any type of plant, but there are a few that they don’t like.
In addition, their movement can trample plant beds, ruin the aesthetic appeal of your garden, tear up lawns, and even leave droppings across your garden, which can be challenging to remove.
In some cases, they might cause physical damage to boundaries (hedges and fences) as well as knock over rubbish bins or ornaments in the garden.
How to Identify Deer Damage in Your Garden
There are numerous clues that you can use to help you identify deer damage in your garden. Look at the plants and floors in the garden, if you notice that there are roughly clipped leaves or that buds/blossoms are missing overnight then there is likely a deer eating on your plants during the night.
You might also spot hoof prints in the soil. Deer have very recognisable hoof prints that often walk in a fairly straight line. While they are light-footed, their movements often leave a very well obvious trail. In addition, you might notice flattened grass where a deer has laid down.
Look around the area for small piles of droppings. Deer droppings are round and black.
During the winter months, there are more signs of deer that you might find. This includes damage to tree trunks that look like scrapes. Deer can do this up to six feet high, so if you see signs this high, you can eliminate other potential culprits.
Plants that are Prone to Deer Feasting
Numerous plants are particularly targeted by deer. Deer prefer to eat tender greens, such as lettuce, hosta, young plants, and ivy. Having these in the garden can often attract the deer and they will return regularly, even every night, to feast on the plants.
Deer are also known to eat plants such as tulips, roses, and lilies. They will eat the plants whether you’ve planted them in a flower bed or a container.
And those who love to grow their own fruits and vegetables can also struggle with deer. Deer love strawberries and any fallen fruit. The trees can be at risk too, deer will scrape the tree bark, especially during times of poor harvest or food availability.
What Deters Deer From Your Garden
There are several ways that you can deter deer from visiting your garden. Here are some of the typical solutions that can help.
Odour Deterrents to Add to the Garden
Like most mammals, odours can be a particularly important deterrence. Luckily, many of the odours you can use in your garden can also be used to scare away other pests or unwanted guests from your home, such as snakes.
Some of the common options include using hair, blood meal, garlic, and scents from predators. These can often be bought at most garden centres. However, these elements can be short-lived, you might need to replace them every two to three days. Heavy rains can also dampen the impact of the odours.
If you don’t apply regularly, then the deer might come in and reapplication doesn’t always work at removing them.
Physical Deer Deterrents You Can Use
There are also some physical deterrents you can use to keep deer from accessing your garden, or perhaps just eating your plants. For example, you can use anti-deer fencing that is designed to be higher than they can jump (and they can jump high). Ideally, the fence should be more than 8 feet high. But this fencing can look very oppressive, so there are other options.
If you do decide to add a fence to your garden, you need to ensure that you’re digging the fence into the ground, to ensure they don’t dig underneath. You also need to have no gaps that are 6x6 inches or bigger as deer can fit through these gaps.
Thorny branches are very effective as deer don’t want to get the thorns into them. So deer will avoid trying to go through or over them.
You might want to try floodlights that are motion-activated, these will scare the deer away, but it doesn’t stop them during the day. Sprinklers can also be installed, which will scare away deer at any time of the day. There is also the option of adding hidden fishing lines into the garden. These trap hazards make it challenging for the deer to move around and will lead to them abandoning an area.
Reflective surfaces can also scare deer, but they can get used to these.
Finally, netting might be a good option for deterring deer from eating plants even if they are in the garden.
Noise Deterrents for Deer
Noises are also a great deterrent to use for deer. There are several commercial electronic deer repellent products on the market you can buy. These include noisemakers, radios, whistles, and flags.
While these can be effective for short periods, some deer can adjust to these noises and eventually ignore them. But when used in conjunction with some of the other deterrents, they can be an effective deterrent.
DIY Deterrent Sprays
Some people like to use a home-brew deer deterrent spray. There are several options for the ingredients of this such as rotten egg with water and hot pepper spray. Or you can purchase sprays from gardens.
It is important to keep sprays as organic as possible. You don’t want to be harming any insects, especially pollinators, or damaging your plants.
Final Word: How to Scare Deer Away
When it comes to learning how to scare deer away from your garden, there are several options. You can use netting around your plants, high fences, and several other deterrents. While some people will choose one option to deter deer, using a combination of deterrents will help you improve the chances of removing deer from your garden.
