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

We have had severe deer damage for many years. Initially I could hang mesh bags of soap on the plants and the deer had enough to eat they would avoid the smell and my plants were safe. Then as the deer herd grew I finally noticed that one deer would bite the soap bags and yank them off the rhododendrons and azaleas. Then the entire herd would enjoy munching the plants. I tried sprays, the best being one that is based on eggs. They all would work for a while until the deer get accustomed to them. They also required being reapplied every couple weeks and after rain storms. They eventually became completely ineffective. Here is where we stand today. We have some plants that because of location and/or variety don't seem to be bothered much. The rest we have to physically protect. On the old plantings we apply deer netting. We get it at our ACE hardware. It is black and comes in rolls 100' x 7'. When it is put on we can't see it from a distance. It is a great product. In the spring when the buds swell, we remove the netting and take our chances. Otherwise the plants grow through the netting and it doesn't serve a purpose anyway. Fortunately this works because the deer have already killed the plants they really like. The newer beds with plants that the deer really munch all year long like azaleas, we have put up a deer fence. We get 8' steel fence posts from one of the deer fence companies. These posts have a 4' section you drive into the ground and then you bolt the 8' posts to these short sections in the ground so the fence is exactly 8' tall no matter how far the post is driven into the ground. This is nice, because you can take the tall sections down if you want to. Then I fastened the 7.5' standard deer fencing to the these posts. I ran a wire along the top and bottom to hold the deer netting in place. I have spans of 20'. Again, the deer fencing is black plastic and is not visible from a distance. The deer fencing cost me less than $2 per foot with posts and fencing. Here is a link that might be useful: These are the materials I used:

Oddly enough after 6 or 7 years of having the same rose bush in front of my house the deer ate all my roses overnight. But first they ate my neighbor's roses across the street then my sister's two houses down and my other neighbor one house down. They probably think this is the buffet line. I'm wondering if there has been a burst of babies this year and they are short on food. We have never had the deer come into the subdivision and eat flowers. Still I'm glad they aren't going hungry. Margarita10

They avoid aromatics--some of which are known for beautiful flowers as well (lavender, and rosemary where hardy), you can always plant the hardy cactus which are covered in beautiful yellow lowers in June. Other flowers that are same are bleeding heart, columbines, day lilies, daffodils, iris, lungwort and rhododendros. There are lots actually. But sometimes I will find things damaged that they are not supposed to touch (but may not always just be deer!) Flowers to protect from deer--azaleas, hibiscus, camellia, roses, hydrangea, HOSTA. Mine seem to love Euonymus japonica best of all.--I give p on that one. Would move them into the house but the deer would only be breaking into the house to eat them!