If you've been reading my blog for some time you know of my battles with deer. This year I implemented my Deer Protection Plan (D.P.P. described here) and have had remarkable success. Read that as still having leaves on my hosta at this date.
Today I noticed one hosta had been munched.
So I looked closely and could see that the fishing line was dangling between two trees.
No other hosta had damage.
I thought maybe the deer reached its neck over the brush fence to chomp this one hosta.
The rest of the fishing line seems to be in place.
But there's a mystery. At the other end of the yard in the perennial garden
the clematis which has been blooming so lovely shows chomping.
There's even a petal on the ground.
Hmm. Deer? Ground hog? If it was the latter it wouldn't have stopped with so little eaten. But if it was a deer why didn't it eat the Autumn Joy
in the same garden 
or any of the hosta on the way over to the clematis?
And how did it remove itself from the backyard with all my fencing and fishing line?
It's a mystery that will unlikely be solved.
UPDATE: Friday morning
Well, it's definitely the deer because hosta that were fine yesterday are leafless with only stalks showing. The deer have made it through my defenses BUT it took them this long to do so. In all that time I had the enjoyment of my plantings. These hosta would be disappearing shortly any way.
This is the hosta to the left of the swing in the photo above.
5 comments:
Wow! That is peculiar. We don't have deer in our backyard here in Hawaii. Just munching birds.
Sad to see the damage caused by the hungry deer, Marcia. Your D.P.P. has been working for so long! Although we don't have deer, we have very hungry groundhogs in our neighborhood. The past week, it looks like skunks have been digging holes in the grass in search of grubs. It's a zoo around here! Have a happy weekend! ♡Dawn@Petals.Paper.SimpleThymes
Dawn - you explained another mystery for me - what is digging holes? Skunks you say. I was thinking it may be raccoons. I never smell skunks here. I'll have to do a post on the strange holes.
What a D.D.P. without a shotgun?
The deer are persistent for sure... I will tell you that we have used Liquid Fence probably for 10+ years REGULARLY. And sometimes --during the heavy nibbling times---we would add Liquid Fence several EXTRA times.... George likes to spray some extra LF around the outer edges of the yard (several extra times if needed). Each year, the nibbling becomes less and less... This year, we have had no damage much at all --without any EXTRA spraying... I think it just takes years for that stinky stuff to get 'set'--so to speak.... SO---don't give up... You have really done much better this year. Keep up the good work!!!!
The fawns and juveniles are the ones we have to watch the most since they don't know (until they eat something) that it tastes so bad.... We have had things nibbled in the middle of the yard also --with other surrounding things left untouched... Who Knows!!!!!!
Think I told you that we also use A LOT of human hair on all of our beds... Seems as if that helps not only keep the deer away more, but also the chipmunks and squirrels.....
Hugs,
Betsy
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