How to Keep Deer Away From a Garden

Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen. And in this segment we're going to talk about how to keep deer away from your garden. Now deep are so cute and they're so fun to watch. And they come through and hang out on my property all summer and winter long. And I've really enjoyed them. But I don't enjoy the damage that they can do to my plants. And there's a few tricks that I've learned to protect my plants form the deer and so we can co-exist very well together. And first of all what I have found works really well is that we've left about a half an acre to three quarters to an acre just wild and we got blackberries and apple trees, and areas for the deer to hang out. And that's where they do hang out. It's kind of separate from the house and they love it down there. We have a little creek and they just love to hang out there in the heat of the summer or even in the winter time it's a little bit protected. And they love the apples and the blackberries that it provides for them. So by leaving an area natural I have found that they don't come so much closer to the house to my flower beds, they kind of hang out in that one area and it has everything they need. So that's worked well. And another trick is that I've tried to put the plants that they love like the lilies and the tulips farther away or in the middle of plants that they don't like. They don't like daffodils so I put a lot of the tulips right in the middle of some daffodils and they haven't messed with those tulips. They love my lilies but I've surrounded them with calla lilies and red hot pokers, kniphofia that are a little bit sharp and they don't seem to come near those plants because they have to get through the others. And I've tried hanging the CD's or CD discs from the trees and that doesn't seem to work because they're not afraid of me, they're certainly not; they're not afraid of the discs. And we have a neighbor that she's put coyote urine out on all sides of the property and she swears that that works but it only lasts for a month or two and it smells so terribly that she doesn't want to go outside. So I'm not even trying that. So my theory is to co-exist. If it's still a problem you're only way to get away from them or for them to be away from you is to put a six foot or ten foot fence up at least with barbed wire. And I don't really want to do that either because I want to live with nature. So I have tried to grow plants mostly outside that the deer don't eat. That's my theory. And I've put my strawberries in a lot of my roses into the green house now. And they don’t go into the green house so they don’t get my strawberries and roses in there. So I've tried to work with them and there’s really nothing you can do to stop them all together. You can put electric fences up and there's different kinds of little barriers or metal barrier that you can out up. Or netting that helps too. But then in the end I've tried to work with them and they don't do a lot of damage to my garden, I've been pretty happy with it. And by just separating the plants that they do like by putting a barrier with the plants that they don't like, it seems to be very successful. And I enjoy my deer in my garden and they're part of my family.