deer damage limitation

[brendaward]

Please can anyone advise me how to stop the deer from coming so close to the house. I have witnessed two baby muntjacks coming as close as four meters away from me as I sat in the garden. The end of my garden is a wild life area with lots of trees and we get quite a lot of damage there, but that is nature so not a problem. The small patio area is planted with blue hardy geraniums for the bumbles that live here. Yesterday the blue flowers looked as if someone had cut all the heads off with a hedge trimmer and hoovered the debris. I can only conclude it was the deer (droppings evident.) The garden is half of an acre so practically impossible to ring fence. I do not feed the deer but have counted five at a time, muntjacks and row deer mixed and they are beginning to get braver and braver.

Could I have your ideas please as they are close to the vegi patch!

[muldonach]

The plants in your garden are to a deer the equivalent of an open packet of sweets to a small child. There is a theory that deer can read and select the most expensive plants to browse.

An area of woodland at the bottom of your garden is an open doorway to the deer.

Young muntjac approaching you is not a sign of increasing boldness - they just don't know any better and I would hazard a guess that you don't have a dog?

You have a range of options.

1. You can shoot them out or have them shot out

2. You can physically fence off the garden but muntjac in particular are difficult to fence out and you have already indicated that you do not consider this a practical option.

3. You could try local physical protection of plants through fence sections, plant guards etc.

4. Get a dog

5.you can try all the scarers - motion detector operated alarms, old cds hung up so they twist and flash, tin cans set to rattle etc etc etc - even heard of putting down lion dung - from what I read none of it will prove effective long term and best results are obtained by ringing changes

6 If you cannot provide physical protection for the plants get a camera and get some good photos.

regards
mac