Fencing them out is the only completely effective control. But using repellents can help moderately well - you just have to reapply them often and alternate between a couple of different product so they don't get used to just one and start to ignore it.

I have deer issues as well. I live adjacent to a large greenbelt and they visit my garden frequently........last week I chased five (5!!) out of my garden at lunch time! I don't grow roses - too shady - but there are all manner of shade plants they love - hydrangeas, hosta, heuchera, clematis, various young trees I grow in containers. And they devastate my tiny edible garden in the one area of sun I have. It's not ideal but the spray repellents do help to discourage them.

There is no deer season here :-( Nor would I take advantage of it if there were. I live on an island that is semi-rural so lots of deer and populations expand annually as there are very few predators. The only culling is by cars or by city and county wildlife management.

Jackie, I have a lot of deer, too. This year I'm trying a red pepper flake and peppermint concoction that I read about. It's been working on the pack rats so far on all of my flowering plants. (http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Animal-Pests-With-Hot-Pepper-Spray) I added peppermint oil too just for good measure. Sorry that happened. It's such a drag.

I always plant baby roses inside of "deer cages" - that way they can get big enough to survive some nibbling. I usually have to leaves the cages on for at least 2 years. Then I take them off. I do use that "rotten egg" deer spray on any new basal shoots I see coming up. We are sort of lucky about deer. We live only 4 blocks from the downtown of a 60,000 pop town. So, we only get one or two deer at a time. They walk down the sidewalks, cross streets at the corners (I am NOT making this up!), and are mostly nocturnal. Sometimes a doe has her babies in the wild back part of the property. They usually just stay for a few days before taking the kids somewhere else.

Jackie

I've heard of bars of Irish spring soap deter them , you can chip them up and put them in stockings and hang them around . Also have heard of people taking dog fur clippings from the groomers and using that . I'm sorry you are dealing with them !!

Roe deer are a plague in our garden. While they do their share of harm to roses, they're more destructive to many shrubs and young trees, and particularly damaging to Italian cypresses, even fairly large ones, which are the single best tree in our difficult conditions. The garden is large, steep, irregularly shaped, and surrounded by brush, woods, and plowed fields: fencing it would be so expensive and difficult that I can't face the prospect. No solution in sight. Cages of trees are limitedly effective, though not useful for shrubs; we're considering wrapping the cypresses in the plastic netting used to bale hay and later discarded, as the deer can sometimes tear away other protections that aren't firmly fastened. I'm hoping, not very hopefully, for a rapid increase in the wolf population. And come hunting season, if there is one for deer, a cordial welcome will be extended to hunters.

I'm so sorry!! Deer are a big problem here as well. Last year they chomped my roses frequently. This year, I have some in netting and I've been spraying consistently with Liquid Fence. It's a cayenne pepper and rotten egg concoction. So far it's helping but I'm still nervous.

I usually just lose buds and new growth, not whole bushes. But this year I am using a spray on deterrent and also these little canisters that hold mothballs and are supposed to deter deer. I used the spray last year and it did work, but you have to reapply every few weeks. It's not the egg and pepper spray, it's more rosemary oil and some other oils.

Deer fencing isn't that expensive. All you need are peeler poles, staples and deer netting. If a body has the budget to plant and maintain a garden of some size, they can afford deer fencing. Especially if the animals are ruining the experience for you. Otherwise it is like buying a car and then not keeping it running properly because you think tune ups cost too much. Why spend thousands on plants and planting, only to leave it all unprotected because adding fencing would cost some money as well? And then have your enjoyment spoiled because "evil" animals are coming and doing what is expected and natural?

Also part of a garden can be fenced and the most browsed kinds concentrated within this safe area, instead of scattered about the whole place.

8 foot fence.

Sprays and deterrents only work until the deer get used to them. The only real, lasting solution is a physical barrier.

I've heard stringing up a bunch of white plastic grocery bags filled with something light and cheap like old Styrofoam so that they flutter in the slightest breeze scares them off. They are supposed to think they see other deer fleeing, flashing their white under tail fur. They take off too. It's worth a try.

Moses

Patty, I just want to say your garden is gorgeous!

Melissa, thanks for the understanding! We actually have a feeder in our back yard with a blind, and do hunt it durning deer season. It's just a matter of waiting till deer season lol.

tow, I may just have to try that!

Jaqueline, I may look into the deer cages

lily, I pintrested lol and saw the Irish soap thing and went to Walmart and bought some. I also bought the deer repelant they have so we shall see.

ashly, I'm afraid I'll always be nervous too! Waking up in the morning to find all my blooms gone! I will say they left my drifts alone.

Moses, that's interesting, I was honestly considering a scarecrow lol

Moses: I think I'd rather look at a fence, or even chewed bushes, rather than a row of plastic bags. Lol

On Moses suggestion, I forgot that supposedly CDs strung from line also scare them as they spin and reflect light .

Hey, you gotta do what ya gotta do! :)

At least CDs you might be able to make it look like garden art maybe?

These last few are cracking me up.

In PA, white tail bucks jump an 8' fence, 'flat footed.' I bet mule deer bucks clear a 9' fence. Here white tails will eat Yucca filamentosa and Ilex during the winter. Deer can tear through netting like it's a spider web.

Now a 7' fence that they cannot see through, they will not jump. They won't jump over something where they can't see where they will land.

A man planted his vegetable garden in a field. It produced abundantly. The cheap rolled wire 4' garden fence you can get anywhere enclosed it, and no deer had the nerve to try to jump it. Concrete blocks were also used in his fence barrier, and regular bricks, too.

Ask me why the frustrated deer refused to jump his fence. You won't believe the answer!

Moses

I like the show Growing a Greener World. Here's one method that he likes.

http://www.growingagreenerworld.com/controlling-deer-in-my-garden/

The host said that he hasn't had a problem since. :)

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Moses - I'll bite - why did the frustrated deer refuse to jump his fence.

Carol

Moses I'll bite too why did he not jump.

Carol, aka. Rosecanadian and Patty,

His vegetable garden was approximately 45' X 45'. His 4' fence ran around the entire perimeter of the garden. Four, 50' rolls of cheap garden fence were used. Each roll was laid out, straightened out, and cut into 4' lengths.

Along the edge of the vegetable garden he placed 16" X 8" X 8" cinder blocks on their short dimension (8"), sides on 4' centers. 4' out from each cinder block he placed another cinder block, one for each block. They all pointed up 16".

Then he placed each 4' length of fence HORIZONTALLY, upon the raised cinder blocks, edge to edge, all around the garden with a brick upon each cinder block, securing the fence upon it.

The fence ran 4' wide, horizontally, 16" above the turf of the field surrounding his vegetable garden. The fence was cut into 4' sections to facilitate mowing the garden's surrounding turf under the fence. Also, any section of fence was easily moved aside in order to enter the garden, then replaced upon exiting.

No deer ever attempted to jump his 16" high fence, because it was 4' wide.

So you see, it's not the height of a fence, it's the strategic placement of it that will keep deer out.

Moses

I totally feel you! I am running out of full sun space in my back yard and desperately wish I could expand my rose collection/obsession to my front yard. But alas, the deer. My HOA won't allow deer fencing and I'm not particularly excited about using coyote urine or raw eggs to deter them. Why would I want to have my lovely rose scent masked by that unpleasantry?

I think Louis CK put it best when he referred to deer as "rats with hooves" or another appropriate term is "pests on stilts". I get they seem real magical and mystical to some, and I respect their right to exist as well as my own but gosh they are cramping my style.

That is hilarious Moses, the things people will do for thier garden!

Ljsemar, it's funny you say that becuase last night as I was spraying "deer repelant" I bought from Walmart, my first thought was this has to be some kind of predator pee. Lol. So now my garden smells like piss and Irish spring *sigh* hopefully not forever.

Also I just want to clarify that I don't think deer are evil. I'm just suuuppper sarcastic, so if you didn't get that...my bad. Hahahaha :)

Oh, I think they are pretty evil, jackiedavis. Around here, out in the desert hills, we have big mule deer, and they aren't cute. They leave their piles in our back yard as gifts, and I have to chase the resident gang of five away with the banging of pans, and me barking like a dog. This embarrasses my family, and I'm afraid they will have me committed if I persist in this..... I have found over the years that any kind of soap doesn't work to repel deer, cat pee balls from the cat's box don't work, either. Dried blood and urine stuff (expensive) doesn't work, and most sprays don't work--like the one with rosemary oil in it, for example. One spray that partially works against deer is Deer Out, a mixture of peppermint oil, white pepper oil, and the rotten eggs thing. It's available on Amazon and not cheap. This winter it looked like a deer convention was being held out back from the number of hoofprints on the slope (they were after the contents of the bird feeder). The slope runs down to an undeveloped gully. We put up a kind of barricade of metal lattices, about 6 foot tall, but also 6 feet deep. The thing is hard to explain, but it totally flummoxed the deer, and I haven't seen them since we put them up (looks awful, though). The roses aren't blooming, so the real test is yet to come. Diane

Good luck Diane!! Hopefully after all your efforts, the deer will leave you alone. :) I hear you about the embarrassing the family. My yard was like a circus when I fed raw dog food to my dogs outside - magpies (me chasing them away), wasps (me whacking them with a shoe), etc., etc. LOL

Moses - yes, I saw something like that on Growing a Greener World (t.v. show) - they had two fences - both very low - but it was the distance between the two fences that did the trick. I mentioned this last year on the rose forum...but I don' t think anyone tried it.

Good luck everyone!

Carol

The only thing that has ever worked for me is The Scarecrow motion activated water sprayer or a 6 ft fence. Sprays aren't very effective and if it rains (which it does here alot) it washes off. Next morning, roses chomped to nubs. Good luck.

we live in a wildlife preserve hundreds of deer out here

i've used liquid fence spray after heavy rains and about every 3 weeks on a regular basis for 3 years and i'm having no trouble with deer on roses or daylilies (their other favorite) as long as i keep up the spray routine....i have maybe 3 dozen roses and about that many day lilies, i keep the spray (mixed from concentrate and water) in a pump up sprayer and it takes less than 10 minutes to spray everything i spray just before dark and by morning there is no detectable odor

Zippity, your deer probably have more food sources in a preserve than our desert deer, not to mention our deer are a different species. Different strategies work for different situations. Diane