‘Oh Deer,’ Where Did The Garden Go?

Discussion Helped Gardeners Discover Deer-Resistant Plants

By Kendra Bobowick

With the lights dimmed and roughly 45 guests waiting for her next words, resident and landscape designer Brid Craddock clicked through a slideshow of shrubs and perennials chewed to stubs, hostas gnawed to the ground. She shook her head at tulips too — early spring growth that deer rarely overlook.

The Conservation Commission sought Ms Craddock’s advice last weekend, as member Marjorie Cramer explained to guests gathered at a discussion April 18 in the C.H. Booth Library, “We watch out for wildlife, but we felt it would be better if the wildlife didn’t go through your garden.”

Rather than commiserating, Ms Craddock switched to another slide: “To give you hope,” she said. On screen appeared a border garden of Florida dogwood, Eastern red bud, Siberian iris, baby’s breath, Nepeta, Lamium, blue mist, Buddleia … not all plants appeal to deer.

Despite the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t disappointment of gardening amid an ever-growing deer population, spring’s shoots can easily remain to develop full leaves and blooms, but garden lovers need to make the right plant choices.

Laughing as she told guests a story, Ms Craddock said, “Everyday they’re eating everything — you probably feel militant.” She joked, “I know vegetarians that start asking about hunting licenses. It’s frustration — when you plant and it’s decimated.”

Moving through her slideshow, she narrated, “I have two acres of gardens and I have tried everything.” Watching her plantings dwindle, she said, “I should have lit a match, it would be less painful than bit by bit.”

Ms Craddock’s advice? To start, look for silver leafed, variegated, and mint-family plants. On a back table sat bee balm, catmint, Japanese sedge, and one pruned Buddleia. “Feel and smell them — they have characteristics of plants that are resistant,” she said.

Aside from knowing what to plant to keep gardens safer from the bucks and does, Ms Craddock clarified another point that will help gardeners plant borders and beds that flourish. Know your culprit. It could be a rabbit or vole doing damage; it could be accidental.

“One woman called to complain, ‘It’s down to the ground again, gone!’” She said. The mystery? “The yard guys weed whacked it.”

Moving through a host of reasons that the deer are driven into backyards to graze, she presented a quick history of invasives, how they arrived in the state, how they became prevalent, and the subsequent deterioration of undergrowth and vegetation that otherwise would feed the deer.

As deer in Connecticut became “fat and healthy,” their numbers jumped higher and higher. Aside from presenting an unappetizing buffet of gardens, the only way to keep deer out of the yard is with fencing, preferably electric. She went through slides of a five-wire slanted fence. With one wire carrying enough current to sting, the deer are discouraged. But somehow they know the second electricity is off. Depth perception is also a deterrent. Deer will not jump something if they can’t gauge the drop on the other side, she said. Ms Craddock also said mesh or net fences stop a deer only long enough for them to break the webbing. Some solid board fencing works, but is expensive. She ran through a host of repellents and sprays and methods of application that add up to varying degrees of effectiveness.

Guests left with a list of deer resistant plants, many of them native.

The native, sun-loving plants include: sourwood tree, American holly, spruce, inkberry, ninebark, summersweet, steeplebush, pink turtlehead, coneflower, Yarrow, gayfeather, bee balm, blue star milkweed, Solidago, and little blue stem rrass. Shade plants include: Shadblow, Eastern red bud, Florida dogwood, Carolina silverbell, Sweetbay magnolia, Joe Pye weed, coral bells, fern leaf bleeding heart, columbine, Tiarella, Labrador violates.