This has been an ongoing battle for three years and hopefully the real fence will take care of the problem.

Nice looking fence! That should thwart them.

Hopefully you have them at bay Fred. That's a good looking deterrent for sure.

Hope it works. Your plants are so beautiful

I'd tried every deer repellant known to man when the reality finally hit. Once they've found your garden, they will continue to return to food when they become hungry enough, no matter what deterrent you use. It was either install a fence or give up growing daylilies. Four years later, I don't regret one cent spent on the fence, and only wish I'd gotten it earlier and saved all the money spent on various deer repellants.

I did the same thing Julie trying to avoid a fence because I use a full size tractor to work the beds so I had to make the fenced area much larger to accommodate the tractor. I also had to make one end removable due to the tractor work. The white lattice work at the bottom is for armadillos of course, which were a problem long before the deer.

What a lovely garden you have! Glad to hear you put up a fence. I did too - after 19 years of having so much that I planted eaten to the ground. It was heartbreaking. Went with an 8 footer because of all the Axis deer in the area. My neighbors have a corn feeder that throws food twice a day and a herd comes to feed. But no longer in my back yard!!! Like you I wish I had done it years ago because nothing else worked.
That fence will transform your life!

I keep expecting to have deer problems. I see their footprints in my driveway every year all around my daylilies, but so far, knock on wood, they have not bothered my daylilies. They have eaten tulips when I used to grow them, and later in the year they are all over fallen apples and pears.
Looks like you have solved your problem, nice fence!

I'm sorry to say, Fred, unless your fence is about 6 ft tall they can hop a standard fence at a standstill. You may get lucky, and have lazy deer though. I let the dogs out every morning to chase the deer from my fenced yard. It even has electric wire across the top. What may help you though, motion sensor sprinklers. A sudden jet of water out of no where tends to spook them.

So far so good with the fence, I still see deer but none have jumped over it. The deer in the south are smaller than deer in the north so maybe I want need the electric wire.

I hope this doesn't upset anybody, but I have to comment on this issue. Don't get me wrong, I like wildlife - including deer. When we bought this property 19 years ago, a few white-tailed deer would wander through and they were delightful to watch. Although they would munch a few things, I was still able to grow roses and many other flowering plants. Times have changed. With the proliferation of deer feeders in the area, the deer population has exploded. Texas Parks and Wildlife implores people not to feed them calling it a "misguided kindness". Yet the practice continues. The sugary corn causes goiters and an increase in twin births. With no predators (other than Dodge Rams), the size of the herds of white-tail and axis deer continues to grow. The local highway is littered daily with fresh roadkill, which is sad. During a recent drought, I watched as the deer consumed almost everything in my gardens down to the dirt. That's when I decided it was time to put up a fence. It's not because I don't like the deer; it's because I enjoy gardening for other things like bees and birds and butterflies. And I enjoy growing vegetables, which had become impossible. I dreaded the thought of an 8 foot fence because I didn't want to feel like I was living in Alcatraz, but friends advised me that anything shorter would be a waste of money. So I did it. I couldn't afford to do the whole property, so the deer still have the pastures out front and the woods out back to forage. But I now have about an acre that is protected, so everybody's happy.



The deer issue tends to be black or white. This was simply my solution to finding a compromise in the gray area.

I only have a short four foot fence and I did not have a gate on that for a long while. I well remember the rush of a feeling of security that came over me when I shut the gate I installed for the first time. No, it would not stop deer if they wanted in, it won't stop digging critters if they want in, but it has managed to keep them out. But for those of you who have a huge investment in your gardens and have had everything destroyed by deer, I can almost feel the emotions coming from you that I felt the day I shut that gate...it is like a huge burden has been lifted from your shoulders and now you can actually relax and enjoy the garden. Instead of the sad disappointments you feel when you rush out to see the latest blooms just to find them eaten, you can now actually experience the joy that comes from seeing all the work you have put out being presented in beautiful blooms...now you will actually get to be rewarded for your efforts...that is a wonderful thing to experience emotionally.

Originally my fence was to keep the dogs in. I garden with dogs, so I am use to damage. The deer just do so much worse than the dogs. I am shovel pruning a few roses this year simply because they are just stunted from 3 years of deer eating them and damaging them. Even with the fence and wire they can get in. I have had them on my back patio peeking in the house at 6am! You ate my garden! Do you want to sleep on the damn couch too?! They aren't afraid of big dogs or us. They will stand in the pasture just on the other side of the fence and watch us tend the plants. The mothers lay their babies on the other side of the fence because the smell of dog urine keeps the predators away from their young.

The rabbits I have lost sympathy for too. I have tossed multiple dead ones over into the pasture after my dog kills them (rabbit is not something I want vomited up at 3am in the house.)

If any of you have a way to trap an armadillo I am all ears. He is so far my new worst enemy, not because of the garden, but because he wants to live under my foundation.

I fought the Armadillo and I won! My departed Uncle gave me a large trap (not sure what he used it for), the wire kind with the trap door on one end.
I often have an armadillo problem along with possums and raccoons. This trap works for all of them.
The thing with the Armadillo is that you almost have to build a "barrier wall" to guide them in the trap, they have very poor eye sight I am told.
So it is sort of like a big funnel. I did use dry dog food in the trap, but that was more for the raccoons and possums. You need to find where the trail is that the armadillo is coming and going. Build your funnel (nothing elaborate, just some plywood or something similar about two feet high and two or three feet long) along that trail and aim it at the trap, best if placed in a regular digging area I found. I was lucky to be able to use a fence as a barrier on one side of the trap, and that helped to keep the Armadillos from bypassing the trap.

@Seedfork

I know where his den is so I can just go from there! I am about ready to just wait up all night and drop a clothes basket on him!

I stopped feeding the birds in winter because I was attracting deer to the feeders. I do not want to attract them close to the house. Luckily, I do not have any neighbours that feed deer. I do have neighbours that hunt them, so that helps to keep the population down. I have to fence my veggie gardens, but so far I have deterred them from my perennials and daylilies with Bobbex. I think because they are hunted yearly, they are more afraid of humans and coming close to the house.

I am so sorry that so many of you are struggling with wildlife issues.

I must be lucky- the deer seem to stay on farmland where they munch on leftover corn stalks and such. I've seen deer tracks near the end of the field, but no where near the gardens. The coons do eat most of my fruit every year and the rabbits get ahold of the spinach. We don't have possums anymore (we had four-ish- I think a neighbor put out poison, b/c I kept finding dead possums in the field). I think we have a woodchuck under the deck too, but as of yet- no damage to daylilies...

Now, if I could keep my neighbor's cats from using my space as a litter box...