Awww, that's sad to hear. I've never had to fight against deer eating vegetation, but I do understand, it's a losing battle.

We always thought is was kind of humorous, when the neighbours moved next door to my parents. They had lived out in the country forever, and moved into the city. They planted a small garden and the rabbits ate pretty much everything. She said that in all the years of living in the country she didn't have any problem with the rabbits. She lamented that they even ate her kohlrabi.

Oh no. So sorry, we have trouble with them eating the daylilies.

Supposedly they don't like chrysanthemums. Which is only HALF true.

They don't like the PLANT but they LOVE the blooms. Rotten things stripped all of my blooms off last year.

yeah....I have deer issues...AND pocket gophers....AND weeds....chipmunks formed colonies and there were tunnels for awhile....snakes eat my baby birds that nest on the ground. I think a dog might help...:0) I've always wanted one. :0)

That is heartbreaking, caflowerluver. May your spirits renew as your garden regenerates.

We also have gophers and ground squirrels plus nuisance critters like raccoons and skunks. Just too tired to fight anymore. I am ready for a townhouse in town. Taking care of 2.5 acres is too much work.

I am heartbroken for you!

Before you give up entirely, let's talk. I was once responsible for the landscaping on an expansive resort development as well as an historical garden planted near the site of old tabby ruins.

Deer were a fierce problem all over that island. We learned that a combination of deterrents and repellents could be pretty successful. I used a combination of electic fencing and sprayable repellents in the garden.

I was able to disguise the former so that it didn't look like a prison compound and discovered some very good repellents to further discourage the deer.

That is terrible and I know how you feel. I am fighting coons that are digging up my potted plants. Have been catching them in live traps...4 so far.

We're not real active in the garden but as we live in the same general area as caflowerluver, we have the same problems but on a smaller plot. Our backyard is surrounded with an airy grape stake fence that seems to keep the bigger ones out.

Deer are a nuisance. I probably have to swerve or hit the brakes once a month or so to avoid hitting one when driving in my neighborhood.

Aw, flowerluver, that's a shame and I've been in your shoes. So disappointing.

I moved many things from my former garden here and brought only two species roses when I realized how much heavier the deer pressure was just a few blocks distance. Roses were just about the only thing I had to regularly protect before. I do 'sort of' OK with several things I'm growing, but I'm not willing to spray everything on an acre.

I fought deer for the lower branches on the camellias all Spring. The lace leaf maples, an azalea hedge, new tree peony and like your young buck, one got all the first buds on an entire hillside of nigella nipping into a couple of young dogwood and a viburnum as he passed by. We've known for a year we were having guests from Croatia this month and the deciduous ceanothus should be in full bloom right now, it's not, was deer sheared.

Deer fenced, I can see why you wouldn't feel the need to spray, but Bobbex repellent is mostly effective for me when I have daily deer. I don't even have to use it that often, my problem is life gets in the way and I lose track of what has put out a flush of new (unprotected) growth and am caught off guard more than I'd like. You can get it Amazon, I buy the concentrate and keep it on hand always, mix my own.

Your established roses will come back but in the meantime you have my complete sympathy and understanding ;0)

All of you who don't have deer - They LOVE roses. And raspberry, blackberry, all things thorny. Blackberry vines in the wild are one of their favorite foods.

I'm so sorry your roses got eaten. But I understand that sometimes you reach a point and enough is enough. I bet you could find a cute townhouse with a little patio or deck and have a couple of container roses and enjoy those.

Roses are a favorite. As you have found out over time you really need a 10 ft. fence for deer. Rather than throwing up your hands and leaving maybe you just need to beef up your fence.

What's deer resistant and what isn't is one of those topics like disease resistance in roses where different people on different sites will have different experiences. For one thing deer may sample plants new to them, even if they aren't menu favorites the rest of the time. Otherwise what gets damaged varies with the deer on each site, same as there being different fungal strains with differing abilities to infest particular roses in different places.

DH was against planting roses since the beginning 30 years ago but I do love my roses. We had heard that roses are like candy to deer. He is making 4'x4' wire cages to go around the roses so they can grow back. That is 36 cages!

Two things I have noticed over the years. Dogs do keep them away, even when they are in a fenced dog run. We didn't have a deer problem when we had outside dogs. We have had an inside dog for the last 13.5 years. That is why we put up the deer fence. And they leave a lot of the old garden roses like Hansa alone. It was untouched when oher roses on each side was chewed. They like hybrid teas and really love David Austin. Yum!

I have used a lot of repellents over the years. They work for awhile than stop. I will read about 'Bobbex'. Thanks.

The deer love my hydrangeas. No blooms again this year. and the beetles ate the only little rose bush I had left.

Oh that's so sad. I can imagine that you are devastated. So much work for so many years and gone in one night. That was one hungry deer. I bet he gets a bad belly ache! I hope everything just comes back even more beautiful than before.

Feel bad for you. I don't have deer, living in town, but we do have squirrels, chippies who dig up all my pots of flowers which is such aggravation since i already replaced some.

I've never had a deer problem.Not sure how I'd handle that.

We have have rabbits and rats here. My little dog fancies himself a rabbit hunter so not a huge problem. The wood rats like my zinnias. At first, I thought a neighbor was sneaking over and systematically helping themselves. Then I saw a rat go in one of my garden drainage pipes. I got the water hose and flushed it out. A whole bunch of flowers came floating out. Out came the traps.

Bobbex was also the best repellent for me and my staff.....so a second vote for that product.

I urge you to use a repellent of some kind in conjunction with your fencing so that there is no reward for jumping that barrier.

I just moved to Florida. When we lived in Illinois, there were lots of deer around. However, our 6' privacy fence (completely enclosed the year) kept them from knowing what was on the other side. Never had a problem!

I volunteered at the county nursing home and their fence was only 4'. The deer were there all the time. The could look over and see no predators and that was that. I just eliminated those plants that the deer wanted. However, the squirrels, groundhogs and rabbits were more difficult to control. It was a fight and it gave me a reason to work harder.

You have my sympathies with your roses (and more!!)

Well they did a deer count in my town, and counted over 100. If I don't want it eaten, it is in my back yard(they can't get there. My DD has many hydrangeas, and other candy for them. Her gardeners (and most others) use it mix bobbex with very little water. people tie soap, bars out , and on strawberries,and things they eat they spray egg whites mixed with just enough water to get it thro the sprayer. Deer will try ever thing at least one time.

Ordered the Bobbex from Amazon. Says I will get it tomorrow. I will give anything a try. I had over 40 buds on my 4 David Austin roses alone. No flowers for awhile.

That would make me sick, sorry for your pain!

I have a large garden in the countryside.

I use deer netting around the smaller garden (7' high net wrapped around corner poles - use 100' of net total. They never go through it.)

The larger garden is protected by fishing line. I use 3' tall stakes around the perimeter, and another set of 3' tall stakes 4 feet beyond that. I wrap simple fishing line about 1' from the bottom and right at the top. Very much an invisible fence. The deer do not like running into something they can not identify and they give the tasty garden a wide berth. We see evidence of them walking around it all the time, but they don't jump into the double run of fishing line. To mow, we just cut the line and re-wrap it every 2 weeks. One large spool of line lasts all growing season.

I had a 4 ft field fence installed as a barrier to keep the neighbors dogs out of my back yard and give my cats a safe haven. It had the extra benefit of seeming to keep the deer out (its very wooded, so they would take the path of least resistance) and I became emboldened to plant things that I avoided because they were so enticing to deer. But once in a while, one would figure out she could jump the fence and end up in the yard. Once that happened they'd come in as a matter of course. After reading about their habits, I decided to try to visually extend the fence vertically with little expense. I nailed some 1"x1" boards into the wood posts, extending them up about 2 or 3 feet from the top of the wire part of the fence. Then I ran green surveyor's tape along the top of the new boards and tied some different lengths of it to hang down like fringe. it left a hole between the wire and the tape, but the deer won't leap through an opening that size. They don't know it's not solid. It's not pretty, but because it's in the woods, I can't really see it. Haven't had one in the yard for years. You might be able to do something similar - very inexpensively.

It's getting so overgrown, I sometimes contemplate leaving the gates open and letting them clear it out for me.

I would think those thorns would have ripped his mouth to shreds. I have 3 rose bushes, full of holes. Aphids dine on them & it makes me sick.

Just about everything I plant has wire around it. The deer eat everything, even deer resistant. The only thing they do not eat is my hanging flowers. But, they do keep them trimmed up nicely :). Our vegetable garden is fully enclosed with wire. If the deer don't eat the plants, the marmots will, or the raccoons, or the rabbits, or even the porcupines. I caught a squirrel pulling one of my flowers out of the ground........

I'm sorry. That's terrible. We stake everything that's potentially delicious to deer with ivory soap bars. They don't like the smell and keep away. We have to change the bars maybe twice a year.

Liquid Fence or Repels-All. I use this stuff on my hydrangeas, hosta, rudbeckia, and unfenced green beans, and I used to use it on my roses. Yes, it stinks for a few hours, but then it doesn't.

I'm sorry you had this experience, Caflowerluver. So disheartening!

My dad had fences finally all around his rose/lily garden that the deer loved to eat and munch on. And other areas, he got it all done no they didn't jump in but mind you they have acreage to munch on all over and so I said to dad let them munch on that stuff and they will leave the roses/lilies alone and did, he had a beautiful garden.

Don't know what you have around the rose garden?????

If you have plenty of land then plant yummy stuff you don't care if they munch on and maybe just eat that stuff and not the good stuff.

The deer that visits my yard will eat all the buds and leaves off my roses and leave bare stems. After a complete denuding, the rose may not recover enough to survive the next winter. The deer go after the tenderest hybrid roses and tend to leave the wild brambly rose alone. They prefer the 'soft' rose plants to the old hardy heirloom varieties.

Sometimes, I can repel the deer by spraying the plants with a repellent called "Repels". That repellent must be re-applied after each rain.

Once marigolds are established (have developed a root system), the deer will eat the rose leaves and hydrangea buds in preference to the marigolds. So far, they have left the petunias and phlox alone. Oddly, they do not touch my peonies., but these bloom only once in early summer for about 2 weeks and then are done for the season. For the rest of the year, peonies are just a bush.

Since you have a fenced yard, the best repellent is a yard dog living in a dog house in the yard. All it takes is one 'yap' out of the dog to scatter a whole herd of deer.

That's so disappointing to see your hard work, pride and joy destroyed so easily! I hope you have other garden plants to focus on the rest of the season. We lost the last of our sunflowers to critters over the Fourth. Ill miss them, but fortunately have other plants that were passed over that I can take care of the rest of the summer. I won't get a dog to deter pests, though. I'm always amazed at the wildlife I get in my yard. After watching Sandhill Cranes spend nearly the whole afternoon in the backyard yesterday I realized that most of my neighbors have anywhere from 1-3 dogs running around their yards and it probably makes my yard less threatening to the cranes and other wildlife.

As a retired gardener I will only offer my sympathies as what has happened to you is absolutely heartbreaking. After years of outdoor gardening, life put me in an apartment. I do, however, have a deck which is absolutely loaded with blooming plants and herbs plus humming birds to add their beautiful touch. There are many worthwhile solutions offered to you here, so I hope your problem is solved enough to forestall a move. If not, where there is a will there is always a way. Meanwhile, best of luck in your endeavor.

I gave up tea roses a few years after Japanese beetles got established in a neighboring church yard. Deer had stopped coming for the rose buds after I put up green stakes with bits of Irish Spring bar soap at the tops. (Ugly, because these have to be *above* the roses, but effective.)

Deer don't come into our present yard despite the deer path along the creek on our east. We have four foot fences east and south, plus six-foot wooden fencing on north and west. There are huge arbor vitae east and bushes and trees south. Two years ago one buck did leap the gate on the east a couple of times, but 'shooing' evidently discouraged him from returning. I was most afraid he'd break a leg doing this. THAT would be a mess!

My deer have jumped our chain link fence and have eaten my petunias, my hostas and (before we moved the pots up to the deck) my tomatoes in pots. They don't seem to like to climb the steps to the deck, thank goodness.

We used to plant our tomatoes in our garden patch, but the deer, rabbits and groundhogs took care of those, so we started to plant in pots with fencing around them. Nope, not working either.

As far as dogs, my dogs played along the fence line with the deer. I guess they didnt find my 80 pound lab (who sadly died in June) and my 50 pound blue tick coonhound mix very intimidating.

Blubird - sorry to hear about your dog. I am he/she must be missed. The deer would always run away from my dogs even though the largest was only 17 lbs. I wish I would have got a video of my mini Dachshund chasing a huge buck. We all were chasing it, trying to get it to jump back over the fence. Maybe deer find little dogs more scary because they can't see where they are coming from.

Thanks caflowerluver. He was a big moose of a lab and we miss him daily. We're just about ready to add another rescue back into our home. Maybe we should let the deer help in the decision.

We live in a highly deer populated, rural area and when we moved in we paid a landscape company a significant amount of money to landscape a very large part of our 3 acre lot. Included was $6,000 of English ivy. Now, the company had done business in this part of the state for many years and we trusted that they knew what to plant, and what not to, based on the tastes of deer. We woke the next morning to find ALL of it gone! The company denied responsibility to refund it due to the small print that listed ground cover as an exception to the guarantee......

Jae - sorry to hear about your loss. I would not use them again and I would tell all my friends not to use them too.

I sure wish dogs could keep the deer away here, ours will charge dogs.( and people too) or just look at you and dare you .