Fwd: Re: Annual Ryegrass

[Frank]

Sure. Yesterday wife had a couple of friends over for lunch and I got to show them a deer munching on my lawn. Wish they ate enough so I did not have to cut it but they like my day lillies and flowers more. They go nuts over all the apples around - even crab apples that people don't eat. Six weeks from now, I'll be throwing stuff at them to keep them away from my chestnut trees. Neighbors have been fighting them for peaches and tomatoes. Like I said, at this time of year their world is one big salad bar.

[brooklyn1]

Grass and flowers are nothing... winter is when deer do real damage... that's when their diet changes from green to brown, that's when they eat bark and twigs, they'll girdle your trees and gorge on your shrubs.

The OP gave no details as to how large an area was planted, but I know that a small number of deer will denude an acre of pure annual rye grass in like three nights of foraging. And with each successive night their numbers will double until there is nothing left to eat. Aside from the foraging their hooves will destroy whatever they didn't consume. Naturally the farmers who plant feed lots for deer lose nothing and gain tremendously, because as deer dine they fertilize.

[Frank]

agree and it depends on the concentration of the deer. I've been trying for years to grow ivy on banks away from the house and thought problem was winter exposure until I found deer were eating it. They don't touch ivy in the summer.

With all the winter snow they did a job on a son's arborvitae which shield his pool in the back.

My point was, that with a lot of stuff growing, they usually don't concentrate on one food unless it a hands down favorite.

[brooklyn1]

>I agree and it depends on the concentration of the deer.

This is why any plants you want to keep need to be fenced... there are deer resistant plants but when deer are hungry there are very few plants that are deer proof, and those are so toxic and/or covered with dangerous thorns you wont want them nearby either... but to deer a lush patch of rye grass is candy.