How to Keep Deer Away from Your Garden

Deer are lovely and shy animals, but they can easily destroy your garden and spread many diseases, through parasites such as deer ticks. These graceful animals are most active at dawn and dusk, when they’re out from the forest looking for food.

Photo by Environment WestBrowse landscaping ideas

Deer love to roam within their habitat limits and try to avoid populated areas, but appealing garden foods cumulated with a decrease in their usual food resources make these wild animals to change their behavior and be more daring, encouraging them to visit your garden and yard for a snack.

However, deer have a good sense of smell, so they can be easily kept away from your garden using several home remedies and natural items that smell unpleasant to them. Let’s see some steps that you can take to protect your yard and garden from these “vandals”.

1| MAKE DEER FEEL YOUR SMELL:  Make them to feel your smell. If you want to keep deer away from your property, then you should use products with a strong smell of human being. Go to local hairdressers, cosmetic stores or spas and ask them for hair clippings, pieces of used soap, etc. Spread this hair through your garden. Cut a nylon pair into 15-inch pieces. You will have only to knot one end of these pieces and make several little nylon bags. Fill these bags with soap and hair and tie them from trees at a height of about 1.5m (4.9 ft).

Use “Milorganite”. Milorganite is an organic nitrogen fertilizer obtained from human waste by “Milwaukee Sewerage District” and generally used to fertilize vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs, etc. Spread this fertilizer through your garden and you will keep away deer and other wild animals.

The next tip is quite unpleasant but on the other hand is extremely effective. Collect human urine in a bottle every morning and pour it around the garden perimeter. The urine smell of a “predator” will keep deer far away from your property.

2| MAKE DEER FEEL THE SMELL OF OTHER ANIMALS: Use the same procedure to make them to feel the smell of other animals. You can use dog hair or chicken manure. They will act as an effective deer repellent.

3| ADD PLANTS THAT HAVE AN UNPLEASANT SMELL FOR DEER:  Adding plants with an unpleasant smell for deer, to your garden is indeed a smart idea. You can use bamboo, thorn bushes, garlic, St.John’s Wart, poppy, Foxglove, Lady’s Mantle, strong smelling herbs and different species of trees.

4| PROTECT YOUR GARDEN WITH A BARRIER: You can create an invisible but physical barrier using clear fishing line around the perimeter of your property. When deer will feel this invisible barrier will be so frightened that they will run away from your garden. However, you can use also commercial deer fencing that are invisible for a naked eye but sturdy enough to remove deer from your property.

Another idea is to use bright white and blinking Christmas lights that can be turn on by a timer every evening. These scary lights will certainly startle the deer.

You can use also other commercial barriers such as electric fences that can emit an easy electroshock, strong enough to scare these animals away.

Protect the Look of Your Wooden Fence | How To Build A House (howtobuildahouseblog.com)