They do seem to enjoy buds! You can try the deer spray, or a cage. If they have other stuff to eat that may be enough to discourage them.

Please accept my sympathies. I know just how you feel. My favorite Evelyn got chewed on last night for the umpteenth time, along with a few other roses. Here's my take on deer and how they treat my roses:

1. They like many petaled roses most of all, whether they are highly scented or not. One of the deer favorites around here is Caramel Antique, a mass of petals with very little scent. Deer will walk across my yard from their entry point to chew on even just one bloom of these favorite treats.

2. However, I think scented roses attract deer more than unscented roses, IF they are of otherwise equal appeal. The scent makes the deer more aware of a rose, and the repellent I use isn't as effectively stinky on a highly scented rose like Evelyn. It isn't that deer like scent--it just makes them more aware of the scented rose, and thus it attracts them to that rose.

3. Deer around here aren't interested in rose leaves unless it is very tender new growth, and even then it holds less appeal for them than buds or fresh blooms.

4. The place a rose plant occupies in the flower bed can make it more vulnerable to being deer dinner. My Evelyn grows right next to the deer's entry point from the wild draw below my back yard. Evelyn is located right there, waiting to be munched on by lazy deer who have to make no effort to get to her.

4. Deer here are lazy and not particularly hungry. They won't reach across to get to a less accessible bud, or stretch their necks to reach one higher up on the plant.

5. Deer waste, waste, waste, dropping uneaten tomatoes with deer teeth marks, ripping off half a rose bloom and dropping most of it, and so on. They're just browsing and sampling and driving the gardener crazy with their wanton waste.

My advice to you is to move Ebb Tide and Fragrant Cloud to a less accessible location, if possible, and use stinky repellent spray, and spray often. Good luck. Diane

I have deer in my garden every night and they are indiscrimenate when it comes to roses. Any bud left unprotected overnight will be gone in the morning. I've found that the only sure way to protect the roses is to set up some sort of physical barrier. I have part of the garden fenced in and use ordinary green compost grids for others. Not beautiful, but it's either that or no roses...

I totally understand. When I've got a nice flush coming, I use black heavy duty nylon netting and drape or hang it across the buds to protect them from deer. I then take the netting off when I'm around and want to enjoy them.

Deer tend to browse and graze where they feel most secure. They will tend to graze the areas where there is enough cover for them to hide in, where they feel safest with the most secure escape routes. In those conditions, they will select those plants which appear to be the best "produce". Just as we select the most succulent vegetables, they select those with the most succulent growth. They obtain water as well as nutrients from the plants, like rabbits and other grazers do. If they're hitting specific plants in your garden, it's most likely due to them being located where they feel safest. You can try moving them elsewhere and/or planting "stinky" plants around them. Deer use their sense of smell as one of their major self defense systems. Fill the air with strong smells and it "jams their radar", making it difficult for them to smell coyotes, people and other dangers. If they're appropriate, lavender, rosemary, santolina and other strong smelling plants (even a dense planting of basil) can help prevent them from grazing your roses and are a LOT nicer and easier than having to either cover them with netting every night (as some of my old beach clients did nightly) or using a smelly protectant (coyote urine, blood meal, rotten eggs, or other chemical repellent) YOU will smell. The alternative would be a sufficiently tall fence to block them, or two, shorter fences placed about four or five feet apart, making it difficult for them to jump over. Good luck!

Deer around here graze right out in the open because it's mostly open--they don't look for cover. In fact, our draw-gully was eaten down to nubs by "hired" goats of the sagebrush and rabbit grass, plus weeds, that grew there. The deer still use the gully frequently, and it's their main route into my back yard. The only plant I've found stinky enough to possibly deter deer (possibly, not definitely) is boxwood, which smells like cat urine to them. They hate it. The deer here are mule deer, big and kind of unattractive. Borderline elk, I think. Diane

Our deer go for modern roses first, their large buds are probably more succulent and at a convenient browsing height. I use a deterrent based on kidney fat and it works well. A round bed surrounded by a low hedge of hyssopus has also been left alone although the roses are all modern Tantau varieties.

Marianne, is your deterrent only available in Europe? Mine, based on the typical rotten eggs, plus peppermint oil and white pepper oil, is only about 50% effective. Yours sounds much better. Diane

Wow oh my gosh so much great information here!! Thank you all for so many detailed replies.

I am thinking I will do some kind of barrier, as these roses are along my driveway and they are the first two (In a grouping of 5). I do have catmint, lavender, chives and garlic nearby. Also a hedge of boxwood but it's at the other end of the driveway. Maybe that's why they don't go for the roses on that side.

Our yard is on their path from one woods to another.

I will just cage them. They look terrible anyway all stripped!!

Next year I think I will plant more of the things mentioned here that are too stinky for them. Also it would probably be a good idea to move the roses further away from the driveway wall since they can reach them strolling along the driveway. Maybe put a border of things they hate??

Anyway lots of great ideas here have a lot to think about thank you!!

Ashley, bit late here but my friend with deer problems had success with white netting like Towandaaz's black netting. I didn't even notice until she mentioned it. She left it on all day as well. It a bud grew through a hole it was history. But the blooms under the netting were fine. It was a pain to rearrange with thorns catching. But doable with 2 of us.

Ashley, I don't know if this deterrent is available elsewhere but it is used by the Swedish forest farming industry (our forests are really tree farms!) to prevent elks from munching on newly planted saplings. So I suppose something similar will be used in American commercial forests.

I actually have said for some time that the deer do prefer the roses with more scent. I don't think they are necessarily attracted to the scent, so much as maybe the taste. I think the smellier the rose, the better it tastes to them. I do know with as many roses as I have, they could just go graze them all, but they usually picked the roses with the most fragrance. Thankfully, I haven't had much of a deer problem since we put up a big enclosed pen a couple yrs ago when my son's ex-girlfriend got this stupid dog that kept jumping the fence. She and the dog are gone, but I have put vegetables and potted roses in the pen, which sort of blocks their pathway thru my backyard. They haven't even come in to go after the tomatoes. And this yr we put up another pen at the other end of their path... with chickens. Haven't seen any deer damage in a looong time, even outside the yard. (maybe it's the overgrown weeds lol...)

I used to make up my own repellent spray yrs ago when they used to come in my yard all the time. I mixed up (in 2gal of water) 2-3eggs, a cup of liquid from the Tupperware container where I kept a bar of Ivory soap in water, a couple tbsp garlic juice and a squirt of any kind of hot sauce. You have to strain it to get the egg albumen out and some of the gummy soap globs, otherwise you clog up the sprayer. I would only spray on the new growth and blooms, since they don't really go after much else. It would last a couple of weeks. Worked pretty well.