I kid you not, this rose was in the ground less than 6 hours when a deer came along and ate all of the flowers off. Two new rose bushes eaten bare. I could have cried.
While I was slow getting my experimental deterrent out I thought for sure I could plant the rest of the plants I purchased in the back yard and they would be safe. NOPE!
My Secret Trick for Keeping Animals Out of the Garden
Luckily, I have my secret weapon in place and they are blooming again.
What is my secret weapon? Mothballs!
And before you go on to lecture me about how toxic they are to the soil and plants let me assure you they do not come in contact with soil or plants.
I bought a bunch of small plastic containers and mothballs at Dollar Tree – containers are 3-5 bowls per package and mothballs have lots in a bag. For a buck!
I put several small holes in the lid along with 8-10 mothballs. Lay them on their sides, so they don’t fill with water, near the plants I wanted to protect.
I also moved all of my hostas (known as the four legged salad bar) to one small area of the yard to keep them out of flower beds and that is helping too. The place I put them is really close to the house and so far the deer aren’t brave enough to come eat them.
So far this is working really well. I’ve been using this method since sometime in April with good luck. I imagine I will have to change the mothballs to refresh the scent in another month or two but for the price I can afford it. Sure works better than the Zest soap on a stick I had been using.
How do you keep pests out of your garden?
The sixty-four dollar question (dates me) is this: Are you using naptha or para mothballs? There are two different kinds and they are chemically different?
I am on the road at the time but when I get back home I’ll check the label. Honestly, I didn’t know there were different types of mothballs. OOPS!
Since you mentioned hostas, I have had many hosta plants all around my property for more than 30 years and never ever had issues of any critter eating them….UNTIL NOW! Couldn’t believe it. So far all we’ve done is tie a tin pan on a stake. Haven’t seen any more damage since then…it’s only been a couple of days since the first ones were eaten to nubs and it’s been breezy so the tin pan has been knocking around, hitting the stick and making noise. I did think about getting moth balls, but forgot when I was in town today. May have to try your idea. We live in the country, so we have deer, raccoons, skunks, fox and you name it. Groundhogs also. I find it odd that all those years nothing ever bothered the hostas. Wondering what critter exactly is doing this. There has been a mama deer sighted a lot of late. Thinking it’s her, although we’ve always had deer and no issues. They usually eat the neighbor’s stuff!
You can tell it was a deer if the leaves are eaten off nearly straight across. A rabbit will take little bites and the edges will be jagged. Also, a rabbit will eat it pretty much all of the way to the ground.
Glad to hear this works. We don’t have deer but all the neighborhood cats think we have built giant litter boxes for them. I will make a stop at the dollar store tomorrow. Thanks for the idea of using plastic containers.
I would be curious to see if it works for cats too. Let me know, won’t you?
Happy to hear your trick! The deer have just started to enjoy the day lilies buffet so hoping this will get them to find dinner elsewhere.
Hey Mandy, I’m actually hoping to see my day lilies this year. Last year the deer ate them as soon as they started to bloom. Ugh!