Oh Deer

I’m not much of a gardener. Truth be told, I even have a tough time keeping dandelions alive. The last few years I have been “planting” artificial flowers. But this year, I decided it was time to cultivate my non existent green thumb. My colleague from the hospital helped me plant some beautiful roses and lavender. Initially I had to call her on day seven in a panic stating that the roses had to be resuscitated. She came to my house ASAP only to advice me that they were undergoing “transplant shock”. A month later I had to call her stat again to say the roses were going into hibernation and once again she came running home only to advice me that they had to be “dead headed”. She explained, in terms that I could understand, that they needed to be “debrided”, the way a wound with dead tissue needs to be cleaned up so that the healthy tissue underneath can heal. Oh. I didn’t know plants had the same issues as humans.

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Comox has a much more favourable growing season (for those of you who are gardeners, it’s in zone 8) and I decided it would be best to try my gardening skills in this beautiful valley. After much advice from neighbours and friends as well as clippings from their gardens along with some illicit clippings during midnight strolls, i have been able to plant some beautiful succulents and geraniums and hostas and crocosmias.

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But, much to my chagrin, the hungry deer love the latter three plants and they have eaten most of them. Apparently hostas are like candy to them 😦

I was so disappointed to see all my beautiful plants eaten that I set out to see what I could do to keep the deer away from eating my thriving plants. Of course, I wanted to ensure that whatever I did was going to be environmentally conscious. My elderly neighbour advised me to urinate around them in order to keep the deer away. I have to tell you that it is not easy at all to sneak out in the middle of the night in a nightie and try to squat and jump and simultaneously void in a perimeter around the hostas when you are of the female gender. I’m sure you get my drift. I am praying that no one caught me on camera on that one moonlit night.

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Another neighbour advised me to get llama poo and put it around the plants in order to keep the deer away. Where does one find llamas? And do i really want their “poo” in my garden?

Luckily my friend who is a science teacher gave me a much more viable alternative which is to whip an egg and put it in 500cc of water and spray the plants periodically. Unfortunately, they smell of rotten eggs, but at least that will hopefully keep the deer away. Her husband, ever the gentleman, volunteered to perimeter pee on one of them so that I could experiment what worked the best. So, now i have one plant that is being peed around on a daily basis by a kindly neighbour and six plants that are being sprayed by rotten eggs and one plant that is a control plant. All in the name of science of course.

Happy gardening everyone! If you happen to know other ideas to prevent the deer from eating the plants, please do share.