7 tactics for keeping deer out of your garden

While they're eating your plants, deer will trample the garden and nibble bark from trees, and they may even harm lawn furniture — or themselves — while trying to satisfy their appetites. Here are some tactics to deter deer from destroying your garden.

If you're a lucky gardener, you will go years without enduring raids on your gardens by four-legged pests.

• But for others, deer or rabbits are daily challenges.
• Deer look shy and sweet, but they have proliferated in recent years and become a pest in many areas. They'll eat almost anything — flowers, leaves, fruits and vegetables — so your garden offers an inviting menu.

Deer will find another place to dine if you spray your bushes with a very dilute mixture of cayenne pepper and water.

• Protect individual shrubs by covering them with 13 millimitre wire or vinyl mesh.
• Secure it at the plant base with twine.

Shield planting beds by erecting an inconspicuous fence with black or dark green, five centimetre (two inch) mesh netting.

• Fasten it to stakes or trees; it must be at least two metres tall and enclose the area completely. Otherwise, deer will be able to enter but won't have room to leap out.
• They will not only destroy your plants and the netting but may also injure themselves.

• Stake chicken wire flat around the perimeter of your garden.

Deer don't like to walk on it, and it's not an eyesore like an upright fence.

• Discourage deer from nibbling on your tender young trees by tying white plastic bags to some of the branches.

It works perhaps because the bags look like white tails — the deer's warning sign of danger. They're visible on moonlit nights, and they rustle in the breeze, which also helps spook deer.

• To deter deer with the smell of bloodmeal, place about 60 millilitres (1/4 cup) in a coffee filter, pull the edges together and staple the packet shut.
• Push a wire through the top and tie the sachet to a plant you want to protect.

• To leave a scent deer don't take to, fill the foot sections of some old pantyhose with human hair collected from hairbrushes or your local barbershop.
• Even better, stuff the pantyhose with your dog's fur after a good brushing.
• Tie up the ends and hang the nylon sachets where deer tend to snack.

They won't be back for second helpings. The hair or fur loses its scent after a while, so replace it every four or five days.