JCardina, that's the situation here. The deer eat everything and come in the yard while we are sitting not 10 feet away. You can go right up to them to try to scare them and nothing works. They just look at you like your nuts. The only thing they have not nibbled is my rosemary and lavender. Blood meal and spray-on deterrents do nothing. Surrounding plants with rosemary or lavender does nothing. A game fence would be the only sure bet. The rhodo that was defoliaged above looks terrific now, btw. I'll post an updated pic soon.
You can set up an electified, single wire fence which runs off solar powered batteries. It is less obtrusive, visually, than most fencing.
If it is high enough that they have to reach and 3 strands so they can't walk under on fiberglass rods it should work. As I said before this works for all sorts of farm animals goats and my guardian dogs included. It woul d work even better if there is already some sort of fence there and the hot wire can be cobbled onto it. Liz
At my former home in Nova Scotia we had no problem with deer till our bright border collie died. After two years we got another dog. Deer had eaten rhodos, yew trees etc. daffs were safe but I expected that but thought the former two were on the toxic side. We can get a great fertilizer from shellfish plants but it draws cats for some reason. I think the dog must be free roaming one to repel the deer.
I have used chili pepper powder on my peach tree with moderate success...just before having a fence put in to enclose my garden. The deer don't like spicy peaches but neither do I. The problem with the fence is that now I have a lot of gophers. The fence has stopped the coyotes from getting to them. Good luck Corinna.
The deer up around Timothy Lk. do not seem to like a concoction of 1 ltr. water mixed with 1 egg yolk. 1 tbls. baking powder, shake, then strain before filling the spray bottle(otherwise may plug the bottle). Have seen deer pull stright back when they get close. Apply once a week. Regards.Bob.
