I planted 10 unprotected blueberry bushes this spring and something has been occasionally shearing off the growing tips - not eating them, just snipping off anywhere from a few inches to a foot of cane with a clean diagonal cut and leaving the cut piece next to the plant. Likeliest candidates seem to be rabbits or deer, as I haven't seen any groundhogs this year. I don't know if this is going to harm the bushes' growth over the long term and if the critters will back off once the bushes are bigger, but it is distressing. ~emmers

Last August I moved from the Eugene valley into the Southwest hills ~800-900 ft. above sea-level last year the herds of deer, who quickly decimated nearly all of the plants with which I had brought. Deer danced right up the concrete steps and ate all the tomato plants, leaves and green tomatoes and all. They crunched on them like they were apples. Pretty much anything tropical they ignore (banana, palm, indoor tropical - actually they even nibbled on my bananas last year but this year there are many more other interesting plants) as well as yucca, prickly pear. This year after the plants had gotten a spring start, the deer pruned my fig, persimmon, pomegranate, daisies (flower), marigold, fuchsia (yummy), currant, grape, strawberry, aronia, blueberry, sea berries, mulberry, thorn less blackberry, flame azalea, sea berries, Canna lily, apple tree (they knocked my columnar in a pot over to get to it), goji berry, honey berry, cherry, pear, and another vaccinium. I let them freely prune the ivy the previous owners had left in a protected pot. They haven't touched the creeping cranberry, creeping raspberry, any fern, hardy orange, gardenia, any of the 4 varieties of palm or bananas or (the large windmill palms survived the hard freeze last winter, and the hardy bananas came back, although I do ensure much mulch is added pre-freeze). I do a lot of moving pots to and fro the porch when I leave for work and go to bed, and I plant and set plants in between the large set of juniper and creeping piney something in the front yard. I have been growing beans in hanging pots (if I hang them too low they become convenient snacks for brave, hungry bucks). I plant all flower and edibles with herbs. In a bowl of flowers, curry is quite attractive. Oh yes... they leave my delphinium, spikes, foxglove, snapdragon, alone. Last year the deer chomped and threw my hens and chicks around but have abandoned them for yummier stuff this summer. Oh they even ate the new growth off of a new Rhodie, they killed my camellia, and they have nearly killed a laurel I put up for a screen. I got a larger wax leaf laurel (?) and it seems to be okay right now. They love the fuchsias and petunias and daisies and will leave everything else alone just to eat the blooms. They haven't yet touched my elephant ear that just came up, but they did eat the cyclamen flowers. If we have a hot and/or dry spell, I'm afraid I'll have to put up more barriers, although fences aren't allowed.

I'm planning to put asparagus on one side of the perimeter bed around my kitchen garden. The bed is split by the arbor, with a rose on each side and a clematis over the top. Behind the bed are yellow pontillia shrubs. I'm planning to put cosmos and alyssum in front of the asparagus, so the ferny parts blend in with the cosmos foliage. Since they're annuals, they won't be in the way, when the asparagus come up in the spring...hope it looks as good as I think it will in the plan :)

In my climate, a mature fig (any cultivar other than a dwarf) will easily be 15-20' tall and as wide, if not wider. And Desert King is the most widely planted in this area as it is most inclined to produce a decent crop in our cool summers. Figs are not known to be particularly appealing to deer but a hungry deer can eat anything.