I live across the street from a deer-infested forest, so naturally my little townhouse garden has seen their effects. Annuals, like the Iresine and sweet potato vine formally looking fabulous in pots on my back patio, were especially hard-hit.

The deer didn’t just eat my annuals, though. They napped in the middle of my perennial border. So when someone told me to try mounting CDs to scare them off, I figured I’d give it a try.  I was told that they’d flash in the sun and spook the deer.

A little Googling yielded Buffalo-Niagara Gardening recommending this technique to keep both deer and rabbits away.  They note that it “gives you a way to reuse old CD’s and DVD’s. You can also use aluminum foil pie plates in the same way.”

A winery uses it to keep both deer and birds away.  (But I want the birds!)

I also found this video about the technique, seen in this still image.

I don’t have horizontal poles from which to hang CDs, so I decided to try attaching them to rebar, installed across the deer’s regular pathway from my neighbor’s back garden to mine. And it seems to have done the job because I haven’t seen a single deer there since!  Also yay! They haven’t scared away the birds, which like to perch on top of the poles.

Since then, new neighbors installed a fence, which has kept deer away from their yard – the yard from which they wandered to my perennial bed/napping site.  So recently I removed the CDs, but left the rebar (for another post coming soon). Photo taken this week.

Front Yard, too!

Photo by my neighbor Kathy Labukas

Of course the deer still live across the street from me and this season a Mama and her two babies roamed across our front yards every day. 

In this photo taken from the street, my garden is behind the green poles, where wires hold vines and Mardi gras beads.  I never saw deer in my front garden but deer scat doesn’t lie, and I found some along the path through my little pollinator garden. The solution? More CDs, this time easily hung from the wires that were holding up the vines and beads. No more deer poop in my garden.