Finally! A Deer Deterrant that REALLY works!

I consider deer to be garden pests, which is why I'm posting this here.

I've tried all the commercial products: Liquid Fence, Deer-Off, predator urine, etc. I've done the human hair thing, the soap chips hung out in nylon hosiery, all the gimmicks that are supposed to discourage deer from visiting the garden and eating my plants. If any of them worked at all, their effectiveness was only temporary.

The only thing that truly works all of the time is to make their favorite garden snacks physically inaccessible to them. That means either building a tall fence all around one's garden, which is expensive and not always feasible depending on location, covering vulnerable plants up at night with crop covers weighted down or placing buckets over the plants they eat then removing them in the morning -- all of which is a lot of hassle and if you forget to do it just one night, that's the very night the deer will come in and eat.

I have finally found the solution that works well for me, and am sharing it here.

I have first enclosed all the plants they eat inside of metal plant cages. This alone is not enough, as they can still fit their heads inside the wide spaces between the rungs and nibble. I have taken the extra step of encasing the metal plant cages inside of bird netting and anchoring this netting into the ground via garden staples. The holes in the netting are 3/4 inch, which makes it impossible for deer to slip in their mouths and noses.

The nice thing about the netting is that I can still clearly see my flowers through it. From a distance it is practically invisible. Bees can still get in and out to pollinate the plants, although I'll admit that hummingbirds and butterflies can't fit through the holes in the net. It really doesn't matter which creature pollinates the flowers, as long as something does. The hummingbirds have other flowers to glean nectar from, which can remain uncovered because the deer don't touch them (foxglove is among these). They can also use hummingbird feeders.

Also nice about covering the plant cages with netting is that the cages provide the necessary support for the netting. Tall plants inside the cages have plenty of room to grow and spread out, and when anchoring the netting, it can be widened outward to provide even more space for the plants inside.

Air, light, water and fertilizer can still get in to nurture the plants, and while deadheading is a little more tedious, it can still easily be done. All it requires is a long narrow scissors instead of a bulky clippers. These can easily reach through the net holes to the stems and spent blossoms. Once clipped off, the pieces can be removed with a long narrow tongs or tweezers.

Finally, and best of all -- once the bird netting is secured over the plant cages, it can stay there indefinitely. If you have perennials inside, they'll come back on their own each season without having to be replanted. There's no having to remove the netting and replacing it every morning and evening as is necessary with using crop covers or buckets to hide plants from deer. Even weeding can still be done right through the netting. The trick is to catch the weeds while very small. A narrow gardening fork can fit right through the holes and dig up any weeds that sprout. These, too, can be removed with the narrow tongs or tweezers.

The deer absolutely CANNOT access these plants secured this way. Bird netting is very strong and durable. It doesn't break, and if deer try to bite into it, they just get a mouth full of netting and learn really quickly what a bad idea it is for them to even try! Usually, they're spooked by it and won't even go near it.

Problem solved, for me! I finally get to enjoy my delphiniums and hollyhocks without having them stripped down to nothing by these four-legged pests! This also works well for lilies, poppies, and any other plants that deer ravage on a regular basis.

i hope this will help a lot of you folks out there who have found deer to be the worst pest of all and the hardest to control.

I would love to see some pictures. Thanks so much for posting!

As soon as I take some pictures of this, I'll try to post them. Have never posted pics on this site before, so don't know if the process I use will work here. But, I'll try ... I have beautiful blue delphiniums in these netted cages, now. And they'll be there throughout the whole season and into winter when they go dormant.