Dealing With Deer In The Garden

The latest in the ongoing series of workshops at Marders nursery in Bridgehampton this past Sunday morning dealt with a near-universal problem for gardeners and homeowners in the Hamptons: dealing with deer.

Deer seem to be everywhere these days. They bound across highways, amble down local streets and roam through our villages and hamlets. They cause accidents on our roads and, along with mice, provide us with nearly-invisible deer ticks, carriers of Lyme disease.

Deer have become so ubiquitous because they have no natural predators here, and, as a result, their populations have exploded. At the same time, the building boom of the past 20-odd years has greatly reduced their available habitat—they simply have fewer and fewer places to go.

Paige Patterson of Marders offered a group of motivated homeowners the latest and best information Marders has gathered on keeping Bambi at bay. She explained that everyone knows deer are a problem, but local governments have so far been unable to address the issue.

Opinions among the public are divided. Some people want to allow hunting to cull the herds. Others want to administer birth control to curb population growth. Still others want the deer to be left alone and even fed.

The debate is passionate on all sides. And until some consensus is reached, there is little that town boards can do. So homeowners must deal with deer on their own, Ms. Patterson said as she outlined some strategies.

There are lots of books and magazine articles on the subject, and plenty of information on the internet. Local nurseries have lists of deer-resistant plants. The problem, Ms. Patterson remarked, is that deer can’t read and don’t know they’re not supposed to eat our garden plants.

What’s really maddening is that deer eat different plants in different gardens, even within the same neighborhood. Gardeners and homeowners just have to try and outwit or confuse them. There are three basic approaches to take: try to grow plants deer don’t like, use repellent sprays or put up fencing.

Experiment With Plants

Ms. Patterson said that deer will eat practically anything, depending on location. Residents of areas with extremely heavy deer populations, such as North Haven, the Georgica area in East Hampton, Red Cedar Point in Hampton Bays and all of Shelter Island have the toughest battle, she reported.

“On Shelter Island, there is no deer-resistant list.”

Still, the plants on the Marders list of resistant plants are pretty good bets for many properties, she said.

As a general rule of thumb, she suggested that plants with fuzzy gray leaves—such as artemisia and lamb’s ears—and strong scents—like nepeta and beebalm—are worth trying. She said she has never (yet) seen deer eat monkshood (

aconitum

) or foxglove (

digitalis

), both of which are poisonous. She said that she has also never known them to go after the shrub andromeda (

pieris

) or ornamental grasses.

When deer do much on your plants, cut them back and they’ll often regrow. For those who can’t live without such deer favorites as hydrangeas, try tall-tree forms, such as peegee and Tardiva hydrangeas, that bear flowers above the reach of deer. You can also plant barriers of plants deer generally avoid, such as nepeta, in front of plants like hostas and daylilies, which they adore.

Use Repellents

There is a host of deer-repellent sprays on the market and most of them are effective.

Most contain some amount of egg solids. Some add garlic, hot pepper and other ingredients to make plants both smell bad and taste bad to deer. These “hideous-smelling things,” in Ms. Patterson’s words, are unpleasant for gardeners as well as deer.

Other repellents add essential oils of herbs— such as rosemary, cloves and peppermint—that are easier on the nose but still effective. Ms. Patterson said she has high hopes for a product called “Deer Out.”

The trick to succeeding with repellents, she said, is to figure out how often to apply them.

“The bottles say once a month,” she explained, but that’s not often enough in areas where deer pressure is high. In Sag Harbor Village, she suggested that spraying every three weeks may be often enough, but in Noyac every two weeks is more effective.

Ms. Patterson recommended spraying any new plants as soon as they’re planted, even if they’re considered deer-resistant, so deer won’t be tempted to sample them. It’s also important to change repellents periodically because deer get used to them.

Members of the audience mentioned having tried hanging bars of deodorant soap or mesh bags of hair clippings or animal fur around the garden. Those materials work for some people and not others.

Dried blood (sold in garden centers as a fertilizer) can work but may attract rodents. Fertilizer made from processed sewage sludge can also be effective (use it on non-edible plants), but it contains whatever materials were in the waste, including possibly antibiotics and heavy metals.

Put Up A Fence

Putting up a fence can exclude deer, but some caveats are in order. A fence must be at least 8 feet high or deer will leap right over it.

The Town of Southampton, Ms. Patterson said, allows deer fencing on two sides of a property, which isn’t going to do very much good. But, she said, enclosing an entire property would just funnel the deer onto the nearest unfenced property, passing the problem along. Before installing a fence, homeowners should check code requirements for their area.

Deer—and birds—can become entangled in plastic mesh fencing, causing injury or worse, and deer can pull an entire fence down. Wire fencing with a larger grid and sturdy posts is better but it is expensive.

Also, homeowners should bear in mind that deer are extremely agile. Ms. Patterson reported that she has seen them crawling on their bellies under a fence, and twisting their bodies to squeeze through small openings.

One option is to erect two lower fences 3 feet apart. If deer see this double barrier they’ll often avoid jumping in. But you can’t plant anything between the two fences or decorate them with vines. The deer must be able to clearly see both fences for the deterrent to work.

In the end Ms. Patterson said she believes in experimenting with resistant plants, and although the list grows smaller all the time, they are still the best option.

“Everything is worth trying,” she said. “But the best thing is to choose plants from the list as the basis of the garden.”