Kim, sorry to hear about the damage. Given that I live among a large herd of deer and quite a few rabbits, I've been literally experimenting with what can be grown without having to purchase things like liquid fence.

I'm in North Carolina, so what's resistant for me and our deer herd may not work everywhere. I've tried to be reasonable about the damage. For example, I pinch back new growth to make perennials bushier so if the deer or rabbits do that first, I don't get too upset about it and I've had some beautiful big clumps of rudbeckia after the nibbling. They are leaving the mature blooms alone.

Since my entire outer garden (outside my fence) was newly planted this spring, I temporarily put up a whimpy 32" high edging fence. That actually worked for several months before the deer started jumping in. What they've eaten has been minimal and acceptable loss so that I consider my deer experiment a success. The fence is down and they aren't eating anything.

The rabbits, while on the property, don't frequent quite as often although we've found 3-4 baby bunnies in among the flowers several times.

This is a topic of my gardening blog if you want to go look. Last week I wrote an entry about deer, drought and disease resistant plants that I've grown this year. I have prior entries in the archive that includes some bunny talk.

Whenever I cut back my lavender, nepeta, basil, rosemary, sage -- I throw the cuttings around blooming flowers in my garden. I think the strong scent of those throws off the bunnies.

I guess my philosophy is that I'm no longer going to spend $100 every year on concoctions to try to deter the critters from eating a few $5.00 plants. I've also adopted the philosophy that if one of my perennials is too damaged, I'll give it to a friend and divide one of my resistant varieties to use as a replacement.

That said, I've had lots and lots of blooms and color in the garden. If you plant for butterflies, most of their favorites are on the yuck list for deer and bunnies.

I empathize with your situation -- used to be there when I lived at my previous house. I spent too much money protecting hostas, hydrangeas and daylilies and didn't have anything to show for it. The deer always won, sooner or later.

Hope this is helpful.
Cameron

Here is a link that might be useful: the deer report

Cameron,
Thanks, I have only about half of what you listed in your deer report,the others I wrote down.This year Im going to give winter sowing a shot.Optimistically Im hoping I can grow alot from seed.If a few get eaten maybe Ill have enough that it will be no big deal.I started most of my plants under lights in my basement this past year but not enough room to do everything I want.So far the coneflowers are whats munched and theyre supposed to be deer resistant.Im guessing not rabbit resistant though.

A cheap and easy concoction for keeping bunnies from eating your plants is eggs, dish soap, and water.

Blend two eggs and a drop of dish soap with enough water to make a quart. Spray on anything you don't want chewed on. It works great in my yard! Evidently, rabbits do not like the smell of raw, rotten eggs.

You have to reapply after a rain or the sprinklers run, but sometimes the rabbits have gone on to eat elsewhere.

Here is a link that might be useful: Creative Soul

I use plantskydd, it is a mixture of bloodmeal and vegetable oil mostly, last year they ate everything to the ground, this year only a few nibbles on the things i forgot to spray when i planted them.

I've done bloodmeal and I've also been known to put dirty kitty or ferret litter in bunny pathways in my garden. I'm just careful to weed the area first. Usually I don't need to weed again until everything is broken down.

I live WAY out in the country. And I know there are deer around - I see them on our dirt road on my way to work. Here's my solution:

I had a stock fence put up around the place - well, about half of it. Eventually, I'd like to fence the rest. And inside this fence I have a couple of Australian shepherds who patrol and keep order.

So far I have not seen ANY sign of deer inside my fence. NO plants have been eaten. No tracks have been seen. (I did see tracks before the fence went up.) I can only think that there are plenty of other places for them to go that are not quite so inconvenient. They could easily jump the fence. But why would they do that with dogs on the inside when there are lots of things to eat OUT THERE?

Now rabbits are another story. My dogs are really NOT that attentive. And I have them trained to stay out of the garden and my flower beds. They really do stay out. Cool, huh? Except when I see rabbits in the garden and the dogs are ignoring the daylights out of them. GRRRRRRRRRR! Oh well. Rabbits ate my hollyhocks - THAT upsets me. I REALLY want hollyhocks. And I, personally, chased them away from the veggies....WHEW! That should not be the job of an overweight, gray haired grandmother.

Well, no pets here I work long shifts out of town 3 days a week.Im just not home enough to take care of a pet unfortunately.Ive captured rabbits,chased them like a crazy lady and sprayed all kinds of stuff. Theres a ton of them and theyre not telling their little buddies yet that my yard is not a good place to eat. Morning glories I replanted 3 times, theyre finally blooming now.So Im considering that a win...with alot of effort on my part.The echinaceas are history,no blooms this year they eat the blooms and leave the green.So Im still spraying ,chasing and trapping here.
Thanks everyone for all the advice-I appreciate it!

Here's info on fencing out rabbits. My friends do this around their veggie garden.

Fencing made from chicken wire, with mesh less than one inch, can be placed around herbaceous plants. The fence must be at least two feet in height with the bottom buried at least three inches. Quarter inch wire hardware cloth made into 18 to 24 inch cylinders, and buried at least three inches will protect trunks of young orchard trees or woody landscape plants. -i> -- Ohio State University

Oh, those darn bunnies! And they are getting very bold here, too! I guess when all is said and done, and there isn't a rock handy to halfheartedly throw at them, I just let them have their way. They have their favorites -- baby Cosmos this year, so big deal, I just throw out more seed to take the place of the eaten plants.

The deer away stuff worked for me -- oh, I don't have deer, just bunnies, but it was very expensive, and it smelled bad. I decided it was stupid to spend a lot of money on fragrant plants just so I could smell raw egg and hot peppers. LOL

Naturally, if I had some baby trees or something really precious I would taken alternate measures, but as of now it's a bunch of ornaments from Bluestone and seedlings from wintersowing....all easily replaceable.

Lime