BRODHEADSVILLE, PA – When Bambi invites all his friends to dinner this Spring, make sure it’s not in your yard! Or they’ll be crunching tulips like candy and popping peas right off the vine. And you can bet they’ll be stealing your prize tomatoes this summer and munching your mums in the fall!
With deer tipping the 30 million mark and suburban sprawl on the rise, it’s no wonder these unwanted creatures are cruising your neighborhood and destroying your yard in the process.
“We garden to create our own private patch of Eden and escape the demands of daily life,” says Rhonda Massingham Hart, author of Deerproofing Your Yard & Garden. “When deer violate these living sanctuaries they damage more than plants. They hurt us.”
It’s more than frustrating to spend your time, effort, and money to turn your yard into a haven only to find your new flowers and shrubs have been mowed down by hungry deer and rabbits. It’s expensive. An adult deer eats between 6 and 10 lbs of food per day, costing homeowners millions of dollars annually.
In today’s economy, you really can’t afford not to treat your valuable plants and yard. “Folks spend too much time and money on the perfect plants to let the deer and rabbits spoil it all by eating them,” says world-renown horticulturist, native plant breeder and author Dr. Allan Armitage.
Oh, deer…what to do?
Forget putting a radio blaring in your azaleas, fabric softener sheets strewn over your flowers, hair in mesh bags or soap dangling from tree branches. Bambi and friends will enjoy the music as they play with the soap and dine alfresco using the sheets as placemats.
But be forewarned: An ounce of prevention in spring is worth a pound of cure.
You could put up deer fences everywhere, and that will pretty much stop the deer. An ideal deer proof fence should be constructed of woven wire at least 8 feet high. Even though building and maintaining a deer proof fence can be expensive ($10 – $12 per foot) and labor intensive, a well-constructed fence will last for many years. But deer have been known to jump fairly high, and the fencing blocks the view of your tulips and that defeats the purpose.
A more economical method of excluding deer may be with an electric fence. Electric fences should be constructed of highly visible polytape wire and quality fencing components, using from 1 to 5 or more strands of charged wire. Higher deer populations typically require more charged wires because deer are hungrier and more difficult to deter. But this is expensive and the wire often breaks.
According Dave Mizejewski, naturalist with the National Wildlife Association.Mizejewski, “It’s much easier to prevent critter damage than it is to stop the foraging cycle once it’s begun. Repellents are easy and are designed to smell or taste bad to critters.” He recommends all-natural repellents that stop critters from eating your plants, are safe for the environment and don’t harm wildlife.

Back off Bambi!
Deer rely heavily on their super-sensitive noses to find food and sense danger, but it’s also their Achilles heel.
That’s why a liberal application of a proven effective, all-season deer repellent such as Liquid Fence® Deer & Rabbit Repellent (www.liquidfence.com) on and around landscaped gardens stops unwanted visitors cold from dining on plants they find irresistible.
It works on ‘scent’ and dries odorless to us but not to deer and rabbits, so they don’t have to take a bite to be effective – unlike other repellents that require the deer to “munch away.” Once they get a sniff, even rabbits will be hopping back to the forest and not toward your carrots or pansies!
“I’ve been a fan of Liquid Fence since my first application years ago,” says Dr. Armitage. “It’s the No. 1 repellent on the market, and I wouldn’t trust my garden to anything else.”
Garden Survival Guide
Armitage recommends spraying a repellent in the spring as soon as the tender shoots appear, and around all plants, trees and shrubs.
And you don’t need to buy different repellents to rotate applications and reapply weekly to see great results. Rotating repellents is an “urban myth”.
Today folks are looking for ways to save “green” while they “go green.” Liquid Fence Deer & Rabbit Repellent is actually less expensive than the green alternatives so you can feel good that it’s safe for the environment as well as your kids, pets, plants, and your wallet.
Repellent should be applied monthly and can withstand about one-inch of rain. It’s a good idea to reapply after a heavy downpour of an inch or more.
All together now
And if Bambi invites his other friends – rabbits, geese, moles, snakes and other unwanted critters, The Liquid Fence Company has a complete line of natural, environmentally safe solutions to keep them out of the garden and in the woods.
For more information visit www.liquidfence.com.