A Master Gardener's Journal

When you’re contending with the potential destruction of your lovingly tended garden, it’s good to know how the enemy thinks and behaves.

Deer are creatures of habit. They follow the same routine, walk the same trails and raid the same gardens every day. Deer are nibblers. They nibble at your choice greenery and beautiful blossoms as they amble along, occasionally pausing long enough to gulp down an entire plant—especially if it’s a hosta. (Hostas are deer candy, remember?)

Deer rely on their senses to warn them of impending danger. They have a very keen sense of smell, a great sense of hearing (they constantly flick their ears back and forth to pick up every little sound) and very sharp eyes that notice the slightest movement. This is information we can use to defend our gardens!

Deer get very nervous if anything interferes with their senses. Which is why we use smelly repellents, highly fragrant herb plants, sudden movements from a stationary object and sound & light shows to freak them out. And combining two or more tactics at the same time is more effective than using just one.

Home gardeners, beware. June is a dangerous month for your garden. You'll begin to see deer coming out of the woodwork. Most fawns are born in late May and begin weaning in just two to three weeks. This is when their mothers teach them how to eat your garden. Fawns taste-test EVERYTHING because they’re new to the game, so nothing is safe.

But June isn't the worst month. All kinds of situations combine to put your garden at extremely high risk in September! First, rutting season begins. (Make sure you stay out of a rutting buck’s way! When in rut, they are very aggressive and can be dangerous to humans.) Deer often go nuts at this time of year, so you may see some strange behavior. Last year a doe panicked and ran right through my closed and bolted fence gate. Twice. And that was the end of my hydrangeas. I responded by laying down six feet of chicken wire in front of the gate. The deer now stay away because they hate to walk on anything that might trip them (they have slender breakable legs.)

But there are even more reasons why September is a nightmare month. Deer become very active as shorter days trigger a feeding frenzy in preparation for winter. Decreasing temperatures also enable deer to travel greater distances, so you can expect even more deer traffic through your garden. Unfortunately, plants that suffer significant damage in September often won’t survive through winter. So now is the time to pull out all the stops with the deterrents and gadgets.

Nuts, berries and fruit trees are favorite foods in September, so take special precautions to protect your property. Those hungry herds will be swarming in like locusts. To make matters worse, bucks will use your small tree trunks to rub the velvet off their antlers. This behavior can damage tree bark and may even cause the tree to die. Protect your trees with tree guards!

September is also the beginning of hunting season. If your property is located next to hunting land, it may become a refuge for deer. And you wouldn’t want that to happen. Once they’re sleeping on your property, it’s very hard to evict them.

Here’s a statistic to give you nightmares: About 40 % of young does give birth when they are just one year old. A doe giving birth for the first time will have a single fawn. The following years she will have twins, triplets and even quadruplets. That’s a lot of deer! If you haven’t seen deer on your property yet, don’t worry—they’re coming. It’s only a matter of time. So plan your strategies now.

UPCOMING MASTER GARDENER EVENT

Smedley Gardens Tour

July 14 10 AM - 12 NOON Fee: $10.

Visit our website at http://delaware.extension.psu.edu/MG/MGcalendar.html.

Do you have a gardening question? Call our Master Gardeners hortline at 610-690-2671 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 AM-12 NOON.