Well, Elizabeth, bambi has (knock on wood) been excluded by dint of
spending an entire year clearing woods and erecting a 10' combo net
and chicken wire fence plus getting 7' high chain link gates for the
driveway (they're on an uphill slope...on the flat, they need to be
8' tall) and keeping them shut all the time (rather a pain in the
derri??re, but if not, they just mosy up the road and drive and come
right in...day or night).
One whale of a lot of work as I did it by myself...about 900 linear
feet of fence....but, since I closed the last little gap and got
those gates (this July) I have not had any deer in the garden.
Prior to this, I have been fighting them for the last 10 years or so;
tried everything under the sun...nothing worked consistently or for
very long. Garden looked like a concentration camp each winter as I
put plastic fencing around individual azaleas and groups of plants
(took forever to put up and take down) and somehow, they always
managed to munch my yew hedges to the bone anyway and there are some
azaleas I haven't seen bloom in years.
Finally, after they munched to the ground a group of Cimicifuga I had
grown from seed - takes 2 years to germinate - and had just gotten
large enough to plant out, I had the course and decided it was keep
them out or quit gardening. The local herd is around 12 or so and
they can really decimate a garden.
I had miles of that heavy green plastic fence from my winter fencing
operations so I used it at the bottom as the net comes 7' tall.
Mistake. They just rolled under it like it wasn't there. They go
under as fast as over and will do that before jumping..very funny to
watch, actually. Well, I had run out of the plastic so put in a
section of chickenwire and found they couldn't get through that, so I
went back around and added chickenwire to the bottom and put logs all
along the outside at the bottom so they couldn't push under it.
Fence is not a thing of beauty...metal fence posts at the bottom with
bamboo (which I have an unending supply of ) wired to them to support
the net, which is wired to the bamboo...but it seems to be working.
After several months of patrolling each inch to see if they could
find weak spots, they seem to have given up...until some big branch
comes down and brings the net with it:-)
Only way to go...fencing...
Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@clark.net
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From: Elizabeth
Marge--
How have you excluded Bambi? I need to know details!
Elizabeth
tiarella@bellsouth.net
Zone 6, KY
