Help! Deer are eating the roses!

Peri

Well-Known Member
Today I met a chap who's garden backs onto the New Forest. The fallow have decimated his roses. Is there a way of keeping the deer out (without a fence...or a rifle) or discouraging them from eating the flowers?

Thanks for your help.
Peri
 
2p worth
how about magic beam once crossed sets off a sharp short noise like the road warning one or outward faceing flash lights
 
I would advise just getting on and securing the garden with a fence, in reality many of the deterrents will work for varying amounts of time, the first you will know of them not working will be minced roses. life's too short.
 
Ha ha,thanks guys! Aren't we all specialist in deer infected gardens:D He really doesn't want to fence his garden. Sounds like he might need to start weeing in it or splash out on some beam activated strobes!

By the way...nice knife Bunnydoom! I have gone crazy with custom blades. My second is being made at the mo and I have another 3 designs in my head!!!
 
Probably a bit late to contribute but I was asked for this sort of help by a Garden Centre and suggested they use panther pea and lion dung from the local zoo. Also human hair cuttings from local hairdresser hung in net bags. As already said in this thread, these measures seemed to work for a bit but the Owners must have got a bit fed up with liberally sprinkling panther pea about because they asked me to manage the deer this year.
 
Try a product called Grazers. It an odourless chemical which is sprayed onto plants to imparts a foul taste and discourages, well, grazers. It is claimed to work against rabbits, pigeons, deer and geese. I've used it against rabbit damage in my own garden and it did work. They bite off foliage, start chewing then spit it out. I found chewed and discarded shoots on the ground and some plants which had been getting hammered were left untouched after treatment. Whether it is equally effective against deer I don't know, but its worth a try. Google it or try the local garden centre.
Other than that a fence really is the only defence against marauding fallow. In the New Forest, even shooting would be like trying to hold back the tide. As with rabbits, you can never get them all and it only takes one or two to creep in for one night to wreck a garden. Much better to keep them out in the first place.
 
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