We have nocturnal urban deer - they walk down sidewalks, cross streets in the crosswalk (I am not making this up!), and like to visit our garden, even though it is only 3 blocks from the downtown of our city. Sometimes they sleep in the wild part of our garden in the daytime. I do spray new, tender roses that I am trying to get going. Also I put them in deer cages until they get large. Most of my roses are either climbers, or teas that get huge, and once they get really big a few nibbles from deer (ours are on desert by the time they get to our house) don't really bother them. Our deer are small, and lazy, and only eat things right at or below their head height, so anything taller than about 3 feet is safe. So, we coexist with the deer, and I am actually fond of them. One doe would park her fauns in the back of our property, and leave them for hours before coming back - they had obviously been told to stay put, and even when we would walk right past them to get to where the cars were, they would just stare at us with those big eyes..... Jackie

I suppose every place has some type of animal that makes gardening a challenge. There are biting and stinging ants, deer, gophers, squirrels, rabbits, kangaroos, moles, and there will always be some that can't be stopped and so must be tolerated. Here in Tasmania we have brush-tail possums. They are an arboreal marsupial that can climb anything and will eat one bite out of every flower and piece of fruit in the garden. I once asked a horticulturist if there was anything that possums didn't eat and he said, "Garden gnomes, but only the concrete type because they will rip right through those plaster ones." He wasn't joking either.

I tried Liquid fence. Beside the expense, there is one other problem. Everytime another half dozen hostas bite the dust, I would remember to spray. I tried Green Screen with similar results. For the last 3 years I was using cotton balls, saturated with cuyote urine in plastic film capsles, hanging from trees. This year it did not seem to make a difference. My own concoction, 1 tbsp each of ground red pepper, garlic powder, vinegar, Murphies Oil Soap, 1-2 eggs mixed in a blender, add 2 cups of human urine, add enough water to fill a 2 gal pressure sprayer. I know it works, because these creatures would find each and every leaf, which did not get hit by the spray. My DIL recommendet Irish Spring Soap. I cut up 10 cakes of soap and hung them from low tree branches, using nylon socks. Now she informed me I have to change the brand of soap every 3-4 weeks. I read in other places that deer will put up with most things, but they don't like surprises. I live on a corner lot bu a neighbor 2 years away, wtches them every day. He feels, they a skiddish. That let me to a little experiment. On the back of my garage I have a motion controlled outdoor light, one sensor with 2 flood light bulbs. I took out on bulb, and replaced it with a screw in receptacle plug, connected a kitched extention cord, to supply power to a radio inside a plastic shopping bag, a strome light and and a string of 4-color streaming lights. I placed the string of lights in the grass. This area was now bordered by the garage to west, the drive way to the south a dense pricket hedge to the east, and the shed to the north. In the gap between the shed and the garage was the string with the lights. All was dark and peaceful. I secured a can of my favorite beer and retreated to the rear of the property. No more the 10 min later all hell broke lose, the radio blasting, strobe light and streaming lights blinking, and in the light beam near the shed recognized a doe, about 2 feet off the ground. I can't say how long she remained in this position. But moments later a heard a loud thump, as the animal plowed into an Amish built rocking bench by the shed. This was followed by a loud rustling sound during the next agonizing 5 seconds, as the poor creature was trying to find an opening in the hedge. I recounted the events to my neighbor, who assured me, that the animal would not be back soon. Just as reminder I still play the radio day and night, supplemented by a timer controlled strobe light or insect light during the night. I have not seen a deer in my yard for about 6 weeks, and I am sure all the little fawns and the other does got the message "don't go there, this place is scary".

edweather, we don't have harsh winters here and our deer aren't hungry. They love roses, at my former house just 6 minutes away the roses were the only plants in my garden that I needed to regularly spray to protect (deer repellent). They are particularly fond of blackberries too (vines, not the berries :)) so will typically have thorny things on their diet. Something else I always found odd, they would walk by 6 roses and eat Double Delight first, year after year. I have daily deer at my new garden, and what they don't eat or walk on, they will lay on - not at all unusual to have them bedded down napping during the day for hours at a time. Plants I've lifted and brought here in pots waiting to be planted are protected with Bobbex spray, and I have a couple of the Scarecrow motion activated sprayers I'll put into use. I'm still coming to terms with how to deal with them as I renovate these gardens, but it's clearly going to take a multi-directional approach.