Deer resistant Landscaping
 

This year the deer really did a number on my property. The deer ate just about everything including 4 new Hemlock I planted last fall.

I would like to hear thoughts on the best deer resistant plants some of you may have experience with.

I'd also like thoughts on deterrents. I have tried motion activated ultrasonic devices and sprays of all kind.

Over the winter they ate a lot of my holly bushes. I am not there in the winter but in the summer i spray deer repellent and it keeps them away from their favorite planta

A thorny rose bush seems to be safe from the hungry deer.

Seems like some of the evergreen pine bushes with the more coarse needles and branches are not on their hit list?

Roses....that makes sense. I might have a place for them. I bought a few breeds listed deer resistant, Green Velvet Boxwood and Butterfly Bush to start. I'm going to experiment. I will also be spraying.

I also saw some Blue Spruce which seems it would be tough to eat....very prickly

chicken wire
 

Deer won't walk on chicken wire. If you lay it flat on the ground and fasten it down, you won't see it under the grass or a light layer of mulch.

Those tall, soft arbor vitae bushes are a big favorite for the deer, and one individual deer will return again and again to keep eating what's left on the same plant.

Even wrapping up the arbor vitae with a burlap cover doesn't always work because the deer will eat down at the bottom below the burlap, or try to unwrap by pulling on the burlap. Probably, they can smell that arbor vitae through the burlap.

Boxwoods and Barberry
 

We lived in CT for 7+ years before they re-instated deer hunting. The deer were everywhere...the locals referred to them as "Connecticut's rodents".

Bushes that were quite popular in our area there were Boxwoods and Barberry bushes. Neither one was liked by the deer. They LOVED holly bushes, however...like a giant piece of Deer Chocolate Cake!

"green giant" arborvitae are deer proof. I have had everything eaten on my property but they don't touch these...

I believe mine were Green Giants and they were basically eaten to the bone

I just read about Barberry. I have this at home and it is very pickly. It is suggested to be "Deer Proof" comes in all sizes down to pigmy and lots or colors. Great suggestion.

Get a hunting license and enjoy the woods in the fall. Deer taste great :liplick:

Yes, a bow and arrow works wonders!

Japanese barberry is an invasive plant that can destroy a forest over the course of a lifetime. We dig it up and burn it whenever we see it in our woods. (That's the only way to get rid of it.)

We have a lot of deer and, during a lean winter, they've damaged a lot of plants including our spruce. Surprisingly, however, they've never touched the spirea in our side yard.

Yes they do! ;)

get rid of deer (just kidding)
 

Funny - I used to like seeing deer along the roadside and geese flying overhead in the spring and fall. Now I see deer has more than just a landscaping pest - they are the key link to Lyme Disease which is a serious health hazard to anyone working in the yard or spending time in the woods and mountains. The threat is only growing. If I had a choice I would open up hunting season for does and bucks and significantly reduce their number.
As for geese, why they are still federally protected is beyond me. They pollute the lake and the shoreline like nothing that I have ever seen. Would love to reduce their number.
And this from a guy that is a bird watcher and general lover of wildlife.

crossbows are legal...

Cocoa bean shells are the best deterrent. Might get them at nurseries. We used them in the garden. It is not necessary to completely cover. Just spread some around areas deer frequent.

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I am a retired workaholic and continuing aquaholic

There are open seasons for both sex deer either by firearm or archery. Trouble is, where the deer are problematic, it is probably a compact area that you can’t discharge a firearm in or need landowner permission to hunt.
There is a “federal” migratory waterfowl season’s as well. Same problem...can’t hunt the geese on golf courses or populated lake shores...but you CAN feed them Cheezits...we do have a resident cheezit expert on the forum here that can advise...

..... Cheez-it originals now selling for $4/ big family box at Walmart ..... is just the two Horse Island geese .... and the female is all busy with sitting on the nest .... so for now, she gets nothing ..... before she started sitting on the nest, she would eat like a very hungry horse, and the male would chill out and refuse to eat even one Cheez-it ..... any foreign geese come looking around Horse Island ....the male shoos them away ..... becomes an attack goose .... honk-honk-honk.... fast!

Creating Superpests—Deer, Mice, Geese, Wood Ticks—Oh My!
 

If the deer are nibbling at Hemlock, there might be a surplus of deer. :eek2: OTOH, deer thrive at woodlands' edges—which we have been unconsciously providing—amply. 'Wondering what to call it? Anthropogenic wildlife maintenance? :confused:

Maybe encourage your neighbors to plant hosta. ;)

A neighbor has posted all of his 101 acres with "No Hunting" signs. One leafless autumn, while walking nearby, I saw a deer stand—mounted high in a tree. :rolleye1:

Will these trees recover or are they trashed?
Even my ground hemlock was stripped bare

Sam, ours did recover before when the deer got them-all but one. This year I will wait and hope for the same. I wouldn't do anything until you know.

Thanks...tops of trees were out of reach but about 6' from the ground up is pretty bare.....will hope for the best

Bow hunting.
 

A shot or two from a large caliber rifle will usually kill a deer fast because of the shock.
A study conducted by the Oklahoma Fish and Wildlife Agencies found that approximately 50% of deer that were shot were never recovered, noting that this rate was similar to data from other studies. Some deer survived for up to 5–7 days before succumbing to their wounds. "71% to 82% of all shots taken" miss the target[30] and "shot placement is, for all practical purposes, random".

Any animal hunting with a bow should should be banned along with trapping.

That's funny because we have two tall ones and the exact same thing happened this winter. The tops are ok but they are bare most of the way up. We are hoping for the best too.

if any of you fine folks have nuisance deer problems and would be open to thinning the herd a bit, i would be happy to offer my services :D

i've been hunting for over 35 years and archery hunting for more than 20. I can help alleviate some of the deer pressure on your property, and if you like, fill your freezer too.

Unfortunately Cocoa Bean Mulch is toxic to dogs so use with caution!


https://www.poison.org/articles/2012...an-poison-dogs

Quite a apparent you are not hunter and fully believe your statistics are made up. Archery happens to be a very successful method of removing deer from the population in fact in Massachusetts the archery harvest now rivals the number taken with gun. Look what archery has done for Long Island in Moultonboro. Archery is a very effective management tool for managing the deer harvest.

I agree...his "facts" are typical of what antis spew...news flash...archery hunting is not going away. His ilk will continue picking away at what they don't believe in though.

Unfortunately, the equipment gets blamed for the poor decisions made by the shooter. A well places shot with a sharp broad head is devastating and will kill the deer quickly. You can't have an intelligent conversation with an anti trapper or hunter
If trapping ever gets banned those calling for it will be the first to scream when rabid animals attack and damage is done to property and roadways because of over population.
One only has to see what happened with the explosion of beavers and the destruction they create! I have a friend who's 83 and has been a trapper his whole life, it's amazing what's happening... they are few trappers in NH and he is inundated with calls to remove beavers from communities and private citizens! He's making a lot of money for doing this and many just bitch about the price!

" You can't have an intelligent conversation with an anti trapper or hunter" Who said I was anti hunting ?
The fact is most arrows are not well placed and these deer can take days to die a very painful slow death,but of course that obviously doesn't mean a thing to you and that the study conducted by the Oklahoma Fish and Wildlife Agencies is just fake news. I guess it's just people of my "ilk" who give a damn.

Camp Menotomy: 90-acre wildlife refuge
 

Take my word on this ..... Camp Menotomy, way down the end of Meredith Neck ...... with something like 90-acres of woods, swampy wet lands, grass playing fields and 2000' of undeveloped Winnipesaukee shoreline is a lot more like a wildlife refuge for the deer, fox, bobcat, black bear, and wild turkeys than like a camp for Girl Scouts.

About twenty years ago, a long line-up of yellow and black 'No Hunting-No Trespassing' signs got attached to a lot of big trees, there, close to the road. And, the animals have been partying big time, for a long time, at Camp Menotomy. Its' real name should be 'Camp Menotomy for deer, and one very happy black bear.' Those Girl Scouts have all moved on to bigger and better things, and the wildlife animals have taken it over.

^^^^^
THIS makes you ANTI HUNTING.

I’m not sure it makes him anti-hunting, just anti-hunting by poor shots. But the thing is, you can’t ban bow hunting because some people are lousy shots. Are we going to ban driving? There are certainly an abundance of bad drivers out there! I saw plenty of it on 93 today. And this coming from a tree-hugging, bleeding-heart liberal!


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The bow hunters group doing most of the archery in the fall on Long Island don't even call it "hunting." It is a "deer reduction" effort. Their group uses tree stands, shoots down at the deer at close range, and now (I'm told) use a line paying out from a reel, as with fishing with a bow, so as to be able to track a deer that doesn't drop fairly quickly. Before the program began, the deer overpopulation were eating all the new low growth, effectively preventing the natural process of new growth replacing mature trees as they age and die off. The deer seen now are much more healthy looking, compared with the scrawny ones seen before the program began.

Completely false again. There are far more well placed arrows than not. Archers are a special breed that spend countless hours practicing and perfecting the shot just as a fly fisherman perfects his cast and perfect presentation of the fly as it hits the water. Archers are very passionate about the sport and likely no one feels worse about a crippled deer than an archer.

Had a collision with a deer last night, about 7:45, on the Meredith Neck Rd heading north, down in the dip below the beautiful horse farm where there's a big brook with water flowing under the road through a big concrete culvert pipe. The speed limit there is 40-mph and I was going about 30-35. Only saw the deer for one fast second before it smacked ..... fortunately, it looked like a thin deer, and not a big one ..... is possible the wheel ran over its leg and damaged its leg?

Anyway, it smacked the right front fender, leaving two new bruise indents and some white deer hair stuck next to the head light cover, the Meredith Police were called and showed up fast, took a report, gave me a report number, the deer was down for 30-seconds, got up and ran off into the woods.

Got to look at the fender in the morning and decide if its worth getting fixed what with a $250 comprehensive Allstate deductible, plus the windshield already grew a 10" crack over the inspection sticker about a month ago, just a glass stress crack probably from driv'n the rough Rt 175 road in Holderness, so that makes two $250 deductibles to get two insurable incidents fixed.

Will probably do nothing unless the windshield flunks the next annual state inspection ..... which it no doubt will ..... so's this deer smack got me incentivized to go get the month old cracked windshield replaced ...... or something?

Now if you would of had a deer resistant foam noodle on your bumper this never would have been an issue!

absolute truth. i've been bow hunting for more than 20 years, and i've killed a bunch of deer and turkeys with a bow. sure, i've made some poor shots. we all have. it happens. whether due to "buck fever" (nerves), improper form, hitting a branch/deflecting the arrow, or simply just making the decision to take a less than ideal shot. bad shots happen, for one reason or another. but more often than not, the shots taken by bow hunters are accurate and lethal. believe me when i say this, NO ONE wants the shot to be a good shot more than the hunter does. we take great pride in being the best that we can be. we practice and practice and practice some more to hone our skills so we can be the best, most accurate, lethal, conscientious, reasoning predator that we can be. and most of us take great pride in that.

and the belief that archery is an inhumane method of taking game is completely false. i've personally witnessed deer shot with a rifle go an awful long way after being shot through both lungs. close to a mile. on the flip side, i've seen them drop in their tracks. same with bow hunting, i've seen them drop on the spot and i've seen them go a long way. you would be absolutely amazed at how tough these critters can be and what they can survive. all the more reason to be as proficient and accurate as you can possibly be, regardless of the choice of weapon.

LMAO! Don’t give him any ideas Dan!

...driving in the noodle zone
 

…...yes.... looking at the fender in the daylight now, there's two welts, sort of blended into the finder rim, just above the tire, about the size of a tennis ball...each

…..you know how some big military vehicles have surround protection against mines and remote control explosives with a buffer armament …. a dense 4" foam noodle circle of deer protection …..going around the car ….like a circle of protection from the deer, or from someone in the Walmart parking lot who is backing up while texting at same time.... protect your car with the NOODLE ZONE!

….. the police officer and some onlooker went way back into the woods looking for the hit deer …. but the deer had totally left the scene without stopping to exchange papers ….. a hit and run!

Please don't plant barberry. It harbors the mice that are hosts to deer ticks and Lyme disease. As another poster said it is invasive and very hard to control once the birds have seeded your woods.