comments:
We live in a heavily wooded area with miles of undeveloped deer habitat around us and they still flock to our house to eat everything in our yard Deer habitat isn't "heavily wooded" areas - it's the edges and meadows adjacent to the heavily wooded areas. Woods are cover for deer, but there isn't a whole lot for them to eat. Your yard is like a wonderful space with food. Your best bet is probably dogs. Even if you just have a fenced dog run where they can hang out in the evenings and bark at the deer, it will change their behaviour. It's also important to make sure your plants are well established so that they can handle browsing. The little wire waste-baskets are good to make sure your plants get to a certain size in the Spring before they're browsed. I also got these little wire cages on Amazon. Because they're made from smaller pieces, you can adapt and adjust them to make sure your plants are well established even when they outgrow the waste baskets. Again, the goal isn't to protect everything, it's to make sure they get big enough to tolerate being eaten. Also yeah - it sucks. It has taken me years to get to the point where some things, enough things make it. And the worst is when they eat off all the flower buds just before they flower.