Winter is decidedly joyful this year. After 12 ½ years battling deer in my garden, and watching hundreds of dreams literally nipped in the bud, we finally installed a deer fence. From the moment the last gate was set, I’ve begun to dream of possibilities again as I fall asleep at night.
Two cats and three dogs following along as we walk the new fence line. (Photo credit: Emma Willburn)
Big dreams involve things like yew hedging, or cage-free hydrangea in garden beds. Little dreams are as simple as Ammi majus running randomly through perennial pockets in summer, or self-seeded hosta keeping down the stilt grass in a bed I don’t have time to weed.
Nothing like a pitiful caged juniper to really enhance the beauty around here (this one got stripped one week after going in the garden). I eventually took out the Philadelphus (to the right) in despair.
Dreams and deer don’t mix
Dreaming hasn’t been happening for some time – which is inconvenient when you’re a garden writer, for it’s in the experimenting and the doing that the best writing originates. Apart from fevered periods of excitement brought on by conferences and symposia that temporarily made me forget about my circumstances, the bloom has been off the rose for some time. I’ve focused on hardscaping instead.
What are were my circumstances? We’ve had a problem since we arrived, but we shifted into “petting zoo” territory about six years ago. Rampant development in my county means that deer pressure has grown beyond our ability to solve it with a rifle.
In addition, I’m not 30 anymore. I’m not even 50 anymore. And I manage a large property with less than eighty hours a year of hired help. That means that every hole dug and every tree caged and every perennial selected, prayed over, and sprayed, represents a hell of a lot of effort – mostly mine. When that effort is negated in the space of 24 hours – over and over again – it’s hard to keep gardening.
So much for the cut flower bed.
What’s truly ‘deer proof’?
Even the most practical gardener will soon find that a plant that is touted as “deer proof” in a book or online, may not be deer proof for you. In addition, deer populations change, and a plant left untouched for years, can suddenly appear on the menu. Faced with an ever-contracting palette, I found myself stagnating – choosing plants that made me yawn, and weren’t my first, second or even third choice.
After years of this you realize you’re no longer planting for the joy of it. You’re playing defense and it’s boring as hell.
So why do it?
That’s the question I asked myself last winter when the deer broke the latch on a small enclosure that protects my vegetables and a few choice things, and they ate those few choice things. Choice, slow-growing things. And I thought, “I seriously can’t do this anymore.”
Variegated Soloman’s seal has been deer resistant for years at Oldmeadow, and thus I grow a lot of it. But it’s eaten to the ground in a friend’s garden. This year, it started to show signs of nibbling.
There’s only so much amsonia and spirea a gardener can plant.
Light in the darkness
And then I met Sandy Schaller. Sandy is a horticulturist at Wave Hill Garden in New York, and has battled deer on her own property for 20 years.
She and her husband had put in a deer fence the year before, and the excitement and pure joy radiating out of her eyes as she related the change in her garden was intoxicating.
Sandy’s story hit me at probably my lowest and most receptive point. Plant friends had talked to me about deer fences before, but I’d dismissed the idea as expensive and/or impossible to implement well. The idea didn’t excite my husband, who was more excited about replacing our fourteen-year-old car, or our 1970’s-era bathroom, than he was by sinking that money into deer barriers (though he had grown tired of hearing the profanity coming from the garden in the early morning).
Rohdea japonica is still safe in my garden, but for how long?
I continued to research and ended up writing a piece for the Wall Street Journal on this garden improvement that often underpins all others. My husband still wasn’t convinced.
“I get it now.”
It was fellow GardenRanter Anne Wareham and husband Charles Hawes who helped him change his mind. After an autumn vacation to England to visit friends, we snuck across the Welsh border to visit them in their garden, The Veddw. Anne and Charles garden in somewhat similar circumstances to us, in that they are tucked into a valley surrounded by woodland – and all the creatures of that woodland. In recent years, deer have become a serious problem.
Anne and me walking The Veddw. Are we talking about deer? Possibly — it’s always my first excuse as to why I can’t do gorgeous things.
My husband had never visited an amateur garden on that level before (The Veddw was featured by the RHS in 2025 as one of the UK’s top 100 gardens). He was able to see not only what dreams can be achieved without deer to dash them; but could talk to Charles at leisure about gates and fences and barriers – both professional and slap-dash. Over drinks and dinners, he listened to the story of this 40-year garden made by two ordinary people, and was inspired by it. The morning we got back on the road he turned to me and said, “I get it now. This is what you do. Let’s do it.”
Discussing design, strategy and other wonderful things over dinner in Chepstow with Anne and Charles.
Is it worth it?
Deer fences aren’t for everyone. There are HOAs to consider and views to preserve and monies to save, and a whole host of things that co-host Leslie Harris and I talked about on a recent deer-focused episode of The Garden Mixer; but I do know that my plant friends who have installed one do not regret it – they only regret waiting as long as they did.
This Prunus mume was lucky — most small trees are snapped in half by this kind of attention.
For us, it is not a question of regret – the resources simply weren’t available 12 years ago to put towards a fence, and it is a sizeable investment. But it’s sobering to take a walk around the property and list out the big-ticket items like trees and shrubs that have been killed, maimed or stunted over the years. Those were investments too.
Fencing doesn’t erase all challenges. I’ll still be battling the voles and squirrels and rabbits that outrun my terriers – and there’s always disease and weather to contend with. I’m still one gardener on a large property after all.
But witnessing a traffic jam of deer form on the other side of the fence (where their trail once led down to what’s left of my azaleas) was a beautiful sight this morning. I may even learn to enjoy watching them again. – MW
Welcome to the club! They’re rats with antlers. True gardebers cheered when Bambi’s mother died.
You made me laugh. Thanks!
So happy for you, Marianne, and for your garden!! Will you be tentative this first year with a fence or are you going to plant with wild abandon? Have fun! Or, after paying for the fence does your budget need some recovery time? A truly Happy New gardening Year to you.
PS – 100% agree with John.
I’m having trouble wrapping my head round it still. And aware of all the breaches that could still happen. So, I’ll probably move cautiously but joyously. –MW
I live in McNairy county Tennessee and deer are very abundant here. fortunately they don’t bother my garden as much as before.’ I do not know why, I just accept it but’ i did put up a pallet fence.
Jon .
So pleased that you went ahead with this garden-affirming project. Congratulations and a very Happy New Year to you both.
Xx
First winter (2010-11) in our 80 by 200 sq ft garden was spent building our deer fence that encloses all but a narrow strip next to our good neighbor’s driveway. Then another winter (2020-21) expanding it to include ten feet in the back that we had originally left wild. (We had acquired invasive human neighbors!) We have 12 gates! If we leave one open even while gardening, within a short time we can have as many as five deer in the garden. It’s wood with hog wire panels. Due to new bad neighbor noise we are considering making part of it solid.
I’m SO sorry to hear about your noisy neighbors, as I have the same problem!
I love hearing about the traffic jam. Impossible after all that suffering not to want to go ‘yah boo!’ at them. And so pleased that we have helped this necessity into life.
But – rabbits?
Rabbits have only just started here, as Mungo grew ever more blind and deaf. We’ll see how things go with Badger. Luckily the groundhogs haven’t moved back in yet. –MW
This is a very inspiring start to the new year, Marianne! I’m always wrestling and hesitating with those Big Necessary Projects. Then when they’re done you wonder why you waited. Bravo and enjoy!
Deer have been a constant presence here in my Chicago garden, as we’re only 100 yds from one of the city’s expansive “forest preserves”. I quickly gave up on hostas and daylilies, although most other plants were left unmolested. About 6 years ago the forest preserves underwent “restoration “, which involved removing most of the understory that the deer normally browsed upon. Needless to say, Bambi and her kin immediately moved into people’s yards and the carnage began! Of course, the situation isn’t helped by neighbors who espouse the “they were here first” doctrine and exacerbate the problem by feeding them. Even the native plants in the forest preserves (which the “restoration “ was supposed to encourage) are now heavily browsed and destroyed unless protected! I have to completely agree that if you’re a serious gardener in a deer infested area, a fence is the ONLY solution. Like the author, I wish I’d come to that realization sooner rather than later!
I have heard both statements: “deer don’t eat native plants” to support the argument of planting native plants; and “deer don’t eat non-native plants” to support the same argument aimed at a different audience. All said authoritatively. Exceptionally frustrating. A lie flies round the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes — isn’t that the old adage?
Deer eat. Period. A fence will hopefully turn their attention back to the non-native multiflora and honeysuckle on the other side of the fence as well as the fully native kalmia, ilex, itea, and cornus that have no hope in hell of growing higher than 18 inches. 🙂 Thanks for the comment, and relating your experience Warren. –MW
I’m thrilled for you and your dreams of the possibilities you can execute now that you’re not battling the deer. I would love to read a future article on the details of the fencing and how well it is working. How much of your acreage is enclosed, and what design did you use? I tried to go to the WSJ article, but I’m not a subscriber. We have 25 acres in the middle of several hundred acres of woods in the NC mountains. I maintain my gardens myself, and I’m 75! Designing a fence that must accomodate mountain slopes and need for several access gates confounds me. We’ve had an explosion in the deer population in recent years, and the deer repellent spray that protected my more vulnerable plants just isn’t working anymore. I’m waiting for my variegated Solomon’s seal to be on the menu soon, but the hydrangeas, hostas, azaleas, coneflowers and many more cherished plants are a lost cause. Our car will be paid off next year. Do I dare buy a fence instead?
Hi Barbara. We have a situation that felt impossible too. Deep in a stream valley, two crossings (which will always need eyeballs on them), and most of the fence on hillsides. The high-tensile wire fencing we used follows the many slopes carefully, and there are tiny gaps on the bottom in places, that we will overlay with chicken wire to keep the dogs in. We only enclosed 6 of the 10 1/2 acres. I needed to get companies out here to talk with me about options before I believed it could work (and see the successful implementation on properties much like mine — or even steeper with stream crossings).
And yes it was an investment in the property, but I was right where you are — and I have friends even more plagued, so I know how bad it can get. I haven’t had a car payment in nine years, so that’s the way I looked at it. The fence is going to bring a lot more joy into my life than a new car (and it’s cheaper LOL). – MW
I live in the mountains of NE GA, in a “nature preserve” next to a national forest. Deer are seen all day and night. We put up an electric fence and it has worked for the last two years.
I live in Wa state up against a State park. I tried for years using every repellent for deer that worked then didnt…tried hiding plants they liked with those they didn’t which is non existent it seemed.Going out one morning to see a beautiful rose gone I came into the house and threw the worst tearful rant about wanting a garden, tired of chewed plants,wanting to move etc…My husband to calm me down ,said he would fix it..with rebar and deer fencing, he installed a very extensive fence on a severe slope,thru blackberries etc.It had to be love. It was great but we found you have to secure thoroughly with the pegs on the ground…right after I chased a large doe to see how got in…she got on her belly, and went under a small area..another kept pushing til stakes were loosened and under it went…they are clever…walk your fence regularly…plus squirrels ,rabbits chewed an opening in the fencing, big enuf for new,small deer to get in…it is worth all of it just to be able to have plants live…yes,we have 2 neighbours that feed them..Enjoy
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That is a wonderful gift that will keep on giving! Yes, belly crawling is a thing (Sandy experienced this too and wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t watched it happen). –MW
So glad for you! I am next to a PA State hunting area and had a neighbor that fed them for 16 yrs until they moved. This past hunting season, the hunters I spoke to said they are not seeing them in the game lands, but are seeing them around the houses. I offered to pay them, supply drinks and snacks if they sat on my patio and took a few out on the other side of my backyard fence. Deer were always a problem, now even more so as the repellents are no longer working (I vary them every couple months) My back yard has been fenced since I built the house to also keep my dogs on my property, and I would love to plant other things out front. Very few things have never been eaten or tasted. There are few things they do not eat in the front yard. It is especially heartbreaking when it is a tree or shrub as the time and money invested is even more so than for the other plants. I started saving my pennies a few years ago and I should be able to fence the front next year. I always tell people, if I NEVER saw another deer, it would be too soon. In my late 60s and maintain 2 acres by myself.
I have a friend whose front pathway is covered in black plastic netting over shrubs. It’s terribly ugly, but she is desperate to grow these plants. I hope that next year brings you a deer free front yard! –MW
Interesting article! As an ARS Master Rosarian one of the questions I get the most frequently is – how do I keep the deer from eating my roses?
Congratulations! I am considering a fence but also uncertain how long we may garden in our current setting. What’s driving my displeasure is extreme deer pressure and the real possibility of deer related diseases, like Lyme and now a host of others. More recently the abundance of lone Star ticks is spreading alpha gal at alarming rates. It’s something I worry about just walking to our car. Correspondingly, I wonder how long I can dodge these maladies. Gardening is our first love, but it may have to be lessened just to avoid this constant threat.
I can’t give up on gardening because of the tick problem. I’ve had chronic lyme disease for over 15 years, which finally settled down a couple years ago, but it was a real life-changer. But it never stopped me gardening. Just had to be smarter. I just can’t live my life in fear — there are too many things to be frightened of! -MW
SIL wanted to know why folks in our community pruned their arborvitae so oddly. Deer, dear. My Acer palmatum is eaten up to 4’, my Cornus is surrounded by hogwire. They do leave the daffodils and peonies alone. Backyard is fenced but my corgi has died, he was a great deer and rabbit deterrent!
Vive la résistance, Marianne! Now you can be the frugal plantaholic you were always meant to be!
Marianne, I couldn’;t agree more. I garden in “deer country” in CT and the first year we had our deer fence, I felt released from bondage. After more than 20 years, I can say unequivocally it is well worth every penny and effort it took to get it right. Of course, a deer fence comes with other unintended results. For example, the fenced part of our property is now a safe haven for rabbits. Once they get in, they stay since getting out is a challenge for them. We have had some damage from storms, bears, etc. So the expense is really never done. OTOH, your plant palette and design dreams will expand exponentially as your inner liberated gardener can truly be released!
Thanks Lorraine — we’ll keep our eyes peeled! -MW
I’m so happy for you! The deer are thick in the foothills of Central Calif. and I only have one small fenced area due to the configuration of the property. I’ve been known to shout at the deer, “THIS IS NOT YOUR CAFETERIA!”And I have given up on much, now only planting what the deer don’t bother, and hoping their tastes won’t change.
Congratulations on being able to fence against the herds that are sadly being displaced by development. I am luckily in an area where development has ceased. As a landscape designer and avid gardener on NC Piedmont 3 wooded acres with a neighboring 5 acre lake there will always be a family of deer ( maybe 5 at a time) that have a regular route they follow everyday. I have been able to direct them with wire fencing to stay on their trails. They only travel in one direction. With the advent of displaced herds I imagine that being removed from their routine habitats and trails they go where ever there is browsing opportunities together stop and spread out to browse. Big problem for sure. As for the ticks. Birds drop them as well as other creatures carrying them around starting with mice. Encouraging opossums and even raccoons helps as they are fastidious groomers and eat the ticks that attack them. Every two years I go to the expense of topping my 4’ wide woodland paths with cedar or cypress mulch…. This seems to help keep the tick population down.
Deer are such beautiful creatures, but they sure do decimate a garden. I’m fortunate to have a natural creek that runs through my back yard, and a back hill with many old growth oak trees, Vinca, and lots of vegetation. Does used to bring their fawns to rest and eat on my back hill, and they were so sweet to observe, but the minute I planted rose bushes, I installed a fence. I love wildlife, and I really miss the fact that they chose my yard to grace me with their presence, but you have to make choices; either a salad bar for the deer, or a garden that thrives. I am fortunate that I live in an area with lots of wildlife, so I still see them, just not in my back yard.
Wolves are a hot topic for debate in the West. Hunters and sheep ranchers want them gone and the state has recently started to encourage culling, but there will be consequences for the valley residents when the deer and elk populations explode. My husband learned to hunt in his forties, but he’s successfully harvested elk because he’s willing to hike further and climb steeper hillsides than the ATV hunters. One year, he watched a pack of wolves as he sat on a hillside at dawn glassing for elk. He said it was one of the most spectacular things he’s even seen. He has no qualms competing with the wolves. There are similar issues with mountain lions. New COVID residents didn’t realize the lions would hunt neighborhood dogs during the winter when the lions travel to lower elevations. It’s a tough lesson to learn that a midsized lab isn’t safe alone after dark behind a six foot fence, but I believe it’s better to keep the predators than let the ungulate populations go unchecked. So when people say “the deer were here first” I think “so were the wolves and mountain lions.”
Here in Maine, the deer population has exploded. We used to have more folks who hunted. No matter what the naysayers scream, hunting does keep some check on the population. We never had much problem until a few years ago when a buck stood in my veggie garden, eating beets and sticking his tongue out as I walked the dog by him. The next spring we put a fence around the veggie beds. This year we have seen droppings 5 ft from the house, tracks practically up to the back door and some nipped off branches. My husband hunts but killing one a year is not enough. My suggestion would be to have hunters cull the herd and donate the meat to schools or food banks. They already donate roadkill to food banks if it’s fresh. There’s a limit to how much the land can carry. If the population gets too big, disease and starvation kill them anyway. I know that is not a popular stand to take but as a Biology major in college, it’s one that makes the most sense to me. I agree with Kendra. We have coyotes but they have been cut down because people hate them. When we had more coyotes, we had fewer deer. Duh! Oh well, we learn to live with it. I hope your new fence works. Ours has….so far.
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