The Deer Have Arrived…T’is the Season

We often look out our back door early after we wake up in the morning to find a very pretty family of deer. Lately, it has mostly been the two youngest ones, just roaming around carelessly eating the acorns that have fallen from the large Red Oak tree on the edge of our property. They are so tranquil…we really enjoy watching them go from place to place…

…until this morning. Now, I am not so sure I love the deer as much as I used to. They ate our plants. I was afraid of this. All summer long as I was planting the Arborvitae, I kept thinking of all the deer-eaten Arborvitae I have seen throughout my life. You know the ones…a nice full, green top, with skeleton of dead, wirey branches at the bottom. Poor victims of a hungry deer assault. Well, they got our front garden.

They didn’t get everything, but did eat one of our plants right to the root. We’ll have to see if that one comes back in the Spring. I hope so. They did the most damage to our Easter Lilies.

So, what to do? Well, I immediately got on the internet and started doing some research. I came across two websites. One has liquid deer repellent and is called “Liquid Fence.” They say to apply this spray once and then again the following week. Then apply every month thereafter. I also found a pellet deer repellent called “Deer Scram.” They say to apply this granular deer repellent every few months as needed.

Well, I needed something for tonight, so I ran out to our local Agway. Just as luck would have it, they had some Liquid Fence. I bought a gallon and brought it home. (now that I have a blog, I really am starting to take some strange photos)

I bumped into a lady in the store who was buying the same stuff. She said it really worked, but smelled HORRIBLE at first, but not bad after it dried. I had to see for myself. I opened the top of the gallon container and took a whiff. UHHGGGGG…I came a few milliseconds away from losing it. She was right, this stuff smelled like a mix between road kill, rotten eggs and the bottom of your kitchen garbage pail. Great, not only will I repel every deer this side of the Hudson, but my neighbors will have to move out as well. Hopefully it won’t be so bad after it dries. I applied it to all of the new plants I put in over the summer. I will let you know how it goes in a follow-up post.