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Gardening and White-tailed Deer

Most wildlife gardening designed to attract and support wildlife, but sometimes we want to keep some kinds of wildlife out of our gardens. In the eastern U.S., white-tailed deer have become so abundant, and our suburbs so inviting, that many people consider them pests.

Local gardeners wait all year to enjoy a beautiful display of flowering daylilies, but the deer often eat all the flowers before people get a chance to admire them.

Others till a vegetable garden, planting and nurturing the seeds, watering and weeding around the beans, corn, and watermelon, waiting for the reward of fresh fruit and vegetable. Often, only the deer reap the rewards!

Even at the National Zoo, in the center of urban Washington, D.C., wild white-tailed deer cause on-going damage to trees, shrubs, and flowers. We have learned to live with the deer that inhabit our park by changing both our expectations about how our gardens thrive and how we manage our gardens.

Some our gardening practices involve fencing; others take careful selection of plants.

Fencing

  • We use fencing to protect valuable plants from deer.

    There are many types of fencing on the market and they vary widely in complexity and cost.
  • We have used a 7½-foot tall plastic mesh fencing around our vegetable garden. It is easily installed and has given us great results for many years. This fence keeps our valuable vegetables safe and is not aesthetically displeasing.
  • At our African American Heritage Garden we are experimenting with using simple monofilament line (weed trimmer nylon cord) around our garden at varied heights. This barely visible barrier seems to have some good results.
  • Another technique is using “bird mesh,” which is a very thin plastic mesh that is used to prevent birds from damaging fruit in orchards. We place it over low-growing flowering plants. This mesh is easy to see through and allows plants to grow and form a nice display while preventing deer from browsing.

Plant Selection

A very practical method of controlling deer damage is selecting plants that deer avoid and not planting highly preferred species.

By trial and error we have learn to avoid daylilies, hostas, pansies, azaleas, yew, and rhododendron because the deer heavily damage them.

Tree Trunk Wrapping & Repellants

Some techniques to control deer damage include the use of plant repellant solutions and wrapping tree trunks to prevent rubbing and bark damage.

Repellents can be effective on a limited basis. Contact repellents are applied on valuable plants but not used on food crops. Effectiveness depends on product type, repeated treatment cycle, rainfall, the availability of alternate deer food sources, and other factors.

Tree-trunk wrapping is used to control damage caused by male deer that rub their antlers on tree trunk just before the fall mating season to remove the antler's “velvet” coating. Tree limbs can be broken, saplings scarred, and bark bruises and torn. Tree trunk protection, such as wrapping pvc tubing around tree’s trunk at the base can help to prevent this damage.

Tolerance

If you can tolerate limited browsing, do nothing and enjoy the beautiful wildlife in your garden.

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