Some of my favorites

2008-07-28T20:19:20Z

Hey fellow bloggers, here are some of my recent favorites from reporting around "the Lymes" and Montville.

Gardening Stories

Coping with Deer

2007-12-20T22:23:00Z

If there's a four-letter word in gardening, it is d-e-e-r. Bambi and Rudolph not-with-standing, this is the season when anyone trying to grow much of anything outdoors begins to really get twitchy.

Or, at least those of us who haven't yet hammered our stakes into the ground and strung up our netting, burlap-wrapped our specimen plants, or sprayed stinky concoctions on our plants-all in an effort to ward off deer from our yards as winter moves in.

While my 4-year-old is gleefully scanning our yard for Rudolph, I am glowering at his cousins, the North American White-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus. They are, of course, eyeing my unfenced, defenseless pines and pfitzers, plus anything else in the winter landscape that appeals to their taste buds.

The problem is there really isn't a "deer resistant plant" out there. As Brad Roeller, manager of the grounds and display gardens of the Mary Flagler Cary Arboretum in Millbrook, N.Y., recently pointed out at my local garden club meeting, deer will taste, and possibly devour, any plant sooner or later. It's a matter of hunger, curiosity, and sometimes changing dietary needs.

Roeller knows his plants-and his deer-from 35 years of working on the arboretum grounds, now part of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies (IES), and more recently 10-plus years of formal studies of what does and doesn't work to protect vegetation from deer. The proper term is "deer browsing." A single deer consumes about 3,000 pounds of greenery a year. "Browsing" sounds too genteel a word for that kind of appetite.

Deer cause more damage to our crops than any other species of wildlife. They affect at least 40 percent of all of our nation's crops at some level, based on Pennsylvania data, Roeller said. Some $250 million is spent per year to replace horticultural plants damaged by deer; $10 million alone in New York state. I'm too depressed to find out the Connecticut statistics, but I'm sure UConn or someone else has them.

Now, we could get into all kinds of debates over who was here first, deserves to eat what, and why can't we just all get along. As would anyone who takes an ecosystem approach, Roeller stepped back and presented the bigger, longer-term picture.

Deer damage to landscapes is a fairly new phenomenon in southern New England, he said, largely because of our changing land uses in the past 50 years. Back when New England was an agricultural region and our trees fueled industrial development, there wasn't a deer problem.

Or, the problem Teddy Roosevelt and others saw was one of possible deer extinction, Roeller said. As the Northeastern forests came back, it wasn't until the 1920s or ‘30s before deer needed to be managed in some areas. Dairying and meadows kept the population at the forested edge of the fields. However, the spreading forest canopy and encroaching housing developments have created prime deer habitat.

Today, we have more than four times the woodlands as during the Civil War era, Roeller said, and more deer than ever reported.

In 1983, a forestry census reported 600,000 deer in the 15 Northeastern states, he said. By 2003, the same sampling methodology turned up more than 3 million deer. In many areas, the number of deer is well over the biological carrying capacity-the tipping point when emerging seedlings can't survive. Bottom line: The more deer, the less diversity in a forest. Other wildlife, including birds, gets crowded out, and the vegetative balance goes out of whack and invasive plants have an easier time taking over.

The kicker: A local herd of deer can increase as much as 50 percent in one year in the absence of mortality. Mortality for most New England deer comes with a four-wheel encounter or old age.

Back to the point: What is a gardener to do? Give up and plant plastic trees and shrubs? Although Roeller considers Nov. 1 his deadline to determine if it's going to be an 8-foot fence kind of winter, or one where repellents will handle the onslaught, he has practical advice for us laggards.

Deer are creatures of habit. It's not a matter of trying to keep them out of your yard and flowerbeds just certain times of the year. Make it an unpalatable place year-round. That means judicious fencing and a rotation of repellants year-round, especially after planting something new.

Deer are a maternal lot-a doe and her offspring may never leave a 200-acre woodland if she decides the conditions are right. Dominant moms will jealously protect their turf from other broods and avoid areas they distrust.

The point is to try not to let a resident deer family move in, he said. If you see new deer around, that means something has happened to the local dynamic. Time to erect tall fences and start being smelly to ward off new neighbors.

Roeller has tested just about every commercial and homemade deer spray, hung soap bars on tree branches, and even put dabs of peanut butter and rolled oats on electrical fences. This last approach works particularly well after a wet night. Tying strips of white fabric on wires strung about deer-rump height also simulates another white tail running out of the area, away from danger.

He has seen some of the best commercial sprays fail when deer are hungry-after a long winter or during a drought. Other times, some of the less effective ones have worked well, such as when there's a good supply of acorns on the ground, or plenty of forest vegetation. Either way, plan to spray every four weeks in the winter and every two in growing season. Our winter challenge is that temperatures should be above 40 degrees all day, and it should be dry, for good spraying conditions.

An inexpensive home brew Roeller recommends is to mix one egg with ½ cup whole milk, add 1 tablespoon each of cooking oil and dishwashing soap-he prefers lemon-scented products-and add to a gallon of water. Spray vulnerable plants every 10 days. The key to this is putrescent eggs. Throw in some hot pepper sauce and a couple of drops of rosemary oil for good measure.

Rotate spray concoctions every third time, just to throw the deer off track.

Just don't send the deer into my yard.

For more information, visit IES at www.ecostudies.org.

Suzanne Thompson

Some of my favorites

Coping with Deer