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Dr. Leda's Rose Journal |
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Not Tonight Deer, I'm Questioning Reality
Dr. Leda answers yet another random question from a total stranger on the internet...
By Dr. Leda Horticulture, O. R.
May, 2004
Dear Dr. Leda:
I recently came across a recipe for a concoction that was supposed to keep deer from eating roses, but I seem to have misplaced it. What do you recommend? These deer are destroying all my blossoms!
— Living a Life of Quiet Desperation in the East Bay Hills
(Continued below...)
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| Dr. Leda's crash pad in the inner city. |
You have my deepest sympathy. Trying to stop deer from eating roses is like trying to keep a dog from scratching fleas. The only rational, legal, and completely effective solution is to eliminate every single one of the fleas. Or in your case, the rose bushes.
Um, QD? You're staring at me like I've got a big red "666" tattooed across my forehead. What exactly are you planning to do with those Felcos?
Ok, QD. Let's just take a deep breath now and back up a bit. You can keep your roses, ok? Ok! We'll sit down and review several possible strategies for your deer problem. Some might appeal to you; some might even work. For a while, anyway. Ready?
- For starters, you can adopt a pet mountain lion. These deadly natural
predators are Mother Nature's preferred means of keeping deer populations
in check. Of course you'll have to keep yourself, your children, your guests,
your pets, your grandmother, and your livestock locked securely inside the
house 24 hours a day for the rest of their lives. This could potentially
diminish your enjoyment of the rose garden.
- Alternatively, you can just pretend that you've adopted a pet mountain lion, tricking the deer into believing your yard is a veritable Bermuda Triangle of grisly predator attacks. The goal is to inspire them to avoid your property the same way you would steer clear of a dark blood-splattered alley behind a convenience store at 2 a.m.
Since zoning laws prohibited Dr. Leda from keeping a mountain lion on the premises, she opted for the next best thing, the fiercest guard dog money can buy. To accomplish this, spread large amounts of evil smelling blood meal around your roses. Next, spray commercially available predator urine (please don't ask me who collects this "glans extract" from coyotes and lions, or how; I'm really not ready to think about that) on the flowers and foliage. My quirky friend Noel has several of those life-size plastic statues of Bambi lying around her garden in various states of macabre dismemberment (I don't know whether they actually fool any deer, but occasionally turkey vultures swing by to investigate).
The drawbacks of this method are: (a) the deer learn to ignore the stench of blood and urine (and mutilated plastic) long before the humans have stopped gagging; and (b) predator urine tends to attract lovesick members of the same predatory species. You might end up with militant mobs of amorous coyotes milling around your premises, too intent on courtship (or eating the resident house cat) to bother the deer.
- You can relocate your home and garden to the inner city, a habitat
rarely visited by antlered mammals. Unfortunately, this sometimes entails
trading one set of woes for another. Instead of marauding deer, you may now
have to deal with constant noise, traffic, pollution, congestion, concrete,
crime, gang wars, neighborhood crack houses, and very very tall buildings
that block all the sunlight. Frying pan, or fire? It's your call, QD.
- You can make your garden so thoroughly hideous and repulsive, the deer will decide to pack up and move to the inner city themselves.
Step one: make the whole yard look ugly. Start by stringing up bars of unsightly mint-green Irish Spring soap in all the trees and shrubbery. Create unsanitary little sacs using pre-worn pantyhose and fill them with wads of unwashed human hair (if you don't have enough to spare from your own head, collect clippings from a barber shop floor). Dangle these unsavory ornaments wherever there isn't already a bar of soap, then drape distracting strips of fluttery tinfoil from all the rose bushes. Install annoying mirror balls, strobe lights, scarecrows, windmills, sprinklers, and exceedingly loud air horns that are all hooked up to motion detectors.
Step two: make the rose garden smell (and taste) as awful as possible. Hang rags soaked in ammonia between the soap and the hairy nylons. Every evening, stroll around the yard and take a whiz on each of your roses. (If you have a dog or a husband, he may enjoy assisting you in this project.) Once a week (or right after a rain, whichever comes first) spray the roses with a foul-smelling deer-repelling concoction, such as that AWOL recipe that prompted you to contact me in the first place.
There are many variations on such recipes, all relying on the somewhat wobbly theory that since deer lack opposable thumbs they are incapable of holding their noses, and therefore, when they encounter a deeply repulsive odor, their only recourse is to curse silently and back slowly away from the source of the smell.
Homemade repellents are usually blends of readily available household ingredients, such as rotten eggs, sour milk, garlic, chili peppers, and malodorous bodily waste products. If you'd rather restrict your blender to mixing Mai Tais, ready-made products such as "Liquid Fence," "Deer-Off," or, predictably, "Not Tonight, Deer!" (they do have a cute logo) are available at most nurseries.
Some people swear by this approach, or isolated components of it, while others report that their luck ran dry after a few years or even minutes of faithful adherence. The main problem (besides the fact that Fine Gardening Magazine never seems to want your garden on its cover) is that deer are not reliably snobbish when it comes to aesthetics. They are, however, reliably obsessed when it comes to roses. If the corner drug dealer was handing out free heroin, how long do you suppose the village junkies would turn up their noses, just because his socks clashed with his tie?
- Last but very far from least, you can build the Great Fence of China around your rose garden. This method has, by far, the highest success rate. To be 100% effective, a deer fence should be at least 8-10 feet high; made of high-tensile wire, mesh fencing, and/or electric wiring; and should not have any operable gates or openings.
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| The guard dog at attention, having caught the scent of a deer foolish enough to venture close to the yard perimeter It's venison for dinner tonight! |
The main drawback here is that large fences can be quite expensive (plus, in the absence of gates, you'll have to throw in the cost of a few ladders so you and your family can enter and exit the compound). If you (like some of us, ahem) have already blown your entire landscaping budget on roses, you may elect to erect a version of "the poor man's deer fence." Thrifty (or broke) gardeners can opt to drape black Dacron netting over each rose bush, to construct chicken wire barriers around individual rose beds, or perhaps to plant a solid ring of 30' Saguaro cacti around the perimeter of the yard.
Whatever you do, always remember this: in the end, growing roses should bring you much more pleasure and joy than stress and misery. If you're the sort who loves to rise to a challenge and who can view an endless series of battles with a detached win-a-few-lose-a-few attitude, then YOU GO, QD! Woo-hoo! Get out there and outsmart those wily deer.
If, on the other hand, inevitable losses and defeats tend to harsh your mellow and leave you feeling depressed, dispirited, and filled with despair (quiet or otherwise), then—and, for the record, I'm crouching behind a bullet-proof desk chair as I type these apostate words—then maybe, just maybe, in all honesty, growing roses isn't the sport for you. Search your heart, QD, and decide whether you really might be happier if you (I'm ducking again!) just forget about growing roses, and concentrate on enjoying the many blessings and benefits of living in deer country.
Meanwhile I'll keep you posted if any revolutionary new deer answers come along. And, readers: if you have any good recipes for venison, send them in!
