I found deer tracks in one of my flower beds where tulips are growing, and the leaves were munched off 5-6 plants, but not the other dozen or so. And, no snacking noticed with tulips elsewhere on the property. Are deer known for liking tulips, or was this just a taste? FYI, deer own this neighborhood, and the flower beds they did NOT raid provide them with more shelter than the one they did.
Or....maybe it was just one deer shopping, and he/she is bringing the whole family tonight.
Deer love to eat tulips. I use milorginite fertilizer to discourage them.
Gary
The message from "Doug Kanter" contains these words:
IME, yes :-( Tulips are regarded as a delicious entree, while waiting for the main course to arrive (roses).
Janet
Stinky fertilizer? Is that why it works?
Deer are slightly less inclined to gobble down daffodils, & perhaps you could surround tulip beds with drifts of daffodils. I'm only in the past few months learning about what its like to garden with deer present, since I took a landscaping & garden caretaker job at a big garden that is a defacto deer park. I've noticed the deer will sample even things they don't like, & if the sample is a small shrub that four or five different elk take one bite of (the elk travel in bands) then reject it as not tasty enough, it still looks pretty badly nibbled.
I planted tulips by chance between matting groundcover junipers & a fence & the deer & elk for some reason just didn't want to walk over the juniper to get to the tulips, but they did pull out of the ground a bunch of bergenias that had been planted that very week (which we replanted & the deer pulled them out of the ground the next day too -- they didn't eat much of them, but their "sampling" behavior can unplant new plantings). Those bergenias were only a few feet from the tulips, but didn't require the elk to traipse through the juniper, which is pretty funny since when they reach the property edge they have to hop through dense undergrowth, but they won't walk over the carpet-junipers.
The elk travel in little bands so can do more damage than a deer by just "sampling" as they pass through. But mainly they seem to like to crop the lawn & I've been suprised how minimally they damage things even with such regular visits, though the elk do unfortunately rub bark off trees to get their antlers shed, one young birch was killed by their rubbing. There are too many birches & the garden could afford to lose one or two, but there are some really swell Japanese maples which I'd hate to be their next rubbing-tree.
The attitude so far is the garden is so big it can stand a bit of "natural pruning" from the deer & elk. If they destroy something really precious in the future that attitude may weaken, but so far it's working out fine. One large fence-enclosed area serves for really delicate plants they'd gobble down in an instant.
-paghat the ratgirl
The milorginite is made from sewage sludge. I have not noticed a bad odor from it.
Gary
That's it. I'm waiting out there with a baseball bat tonight, and stocking up on onions, garlic, and charcoal for the BBQ.
I recently heard of a novel way to discourage deer from eating anything! I have no deer so have not had a reason to try it. It is a hot sauce called 'Insanity Sauce'. It is 10 times as hot as jalapenos...so the story goes. Dilute in a spray bottle and spray on perimeter of garden area or wherever... It's available from Save On Foods (I'm told) and maybe other food stores. It could be worth a try. Gary
Rule of thumb, is if it is green, deer will eat it. They have favorite food like acorns and apples but browse and bite anything that suits their fancy. In the winter snows, deer come up to the house and eat the foundation evergreens. Deer can die of starvation eating evergreens because there is little nourishment but they die with full stomachs. I just put up netting to protect young hydrangeas and rhododendron. When I had a garden, the only crop they did not feed on were the onions. They'd bite a hot pepper maybe once but enough to ruin the plant. If I could hunt the area, I would. Frank
LOLOL Doug!!!!
My late Uncle Seth was a New Englander to the core, he had seed catlogs beside his deathbed looking forward to his next garden.
He was also a collector of " stuff".
He had a collection of " wind up" alarm clocks ( pre- battery operated type with the bells and clappers) that he would set for odd intervals during the night, placed them inside otherwise defunct aluminum garbage cans with a few discarded tin cans and pie plates.
Every evening after supper he'd go out to the garden with his stogie and wind up the clocks, change some alarm times, rearrange the noise-makers among whatever was choice to raccoon, deer or other critter.
Kept his wife exceedingly busy with canning and freezing and always had freebies for visitors and neighbors.
Sue
A 6 foot fence, 2 shelties and a collie works for us :)
I can't do that. Dogs make me vomit.
Well the then dogs should LOVE you since they like to eat vomit.
-paghat the ratgirl
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