DEER
Are deer eating your plants?
Try these natural solutions to keep them away from your prized plants: Put a wire fence around your garden and any newly planted trees.
Repel deer with rotten eggs. Of all of the homemade recipes that people have tried over the years, it is always the ones that prominently feature rotten eggs that get the best results as a deer repellent, based on anecdotal evidence. Mix three rotten eggs in 4 cups of water and add hot pepper sauce and garlic for good
measure.
Hang Irish Spring soap in net bags on tempting plants. The strong smell keeps them away.
Avoid planting things that deer like to eat. They prefer tender and broad-leafed species without a strong smell or fuzzy leaves or petals. Plants they commonly eat include: hostas, daylilies, pansies, tulips and hydrangeas.
Heather, yucca, wisteria, foxglove, lamb’s ear, heliotrope and marigolds are among the least palatable plants to deer.
RABBITS
Rabbits make us laugh out loud many days as they chase one another around the vegetable garden but they appear much less cute when they are chowing down on our Swiss chard and carrot tops.
Discourage them with these solutions:
Apply a mixture of blood meal and some human hair. Rabbits don’t like either so together, they are extra effective. Plus, the hair will break down into good fertilizer. If you’re not doing at-home trims anymore, simply ask a salon for a bag of cut hair.
Concoct a solution of two raw eggs, 4 cups of water, and 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Mix in a spray bottle and apply to the ground where the problem persists. Rabbits hate it. For the best results, the eggs should be rotten.
Fence in your vegetables with chicken wire. The fence should be 1 metre (3 feet) high and buried at least 15 cm (6 inches) deep because rabbits dig.
RACOONS
Sorry, no panacea here. In our books, raccoons and squirrels are higher life forms. They outsmart us every time. They can chew through almost anything, but not a metal container.
Keep your garbage covered and your garage door shut tight at night. Put a lid on your compost pile and secure it with wire cables.
Mark Cullen is an expert gardener, author, broadcaster and tree advocate
and holds the Order of Canada. His son, Ben, is a fourth-generation
urban gardener and a graduate of the University of Guelph and Dalhousie
University in Halifax. Follow them at markcullen.com, @MarkCullen4
(Twitter) and @markcullengardening (Facebook) and look for their latest book, Escape to Reality.
Follow them at markcullen.com, @MarkCullen4, facebook.com/markcullengardening and biweekly on Global TV’s national morning show, The Morning Show.
