People who have recently purchased residential real estate in a neighborhood where deer are prevalent may enjoy seeing this wildlife roaming through the lots and in their own backyard. Then something happens. The deer eat the garden harvest or they seriously damage a beautiful tree by gnawing on the young branches. Now the homeowners are prepared to do battle. They don’t need to harm the animals, but they will benefit from installing deer fencing.
Rural Land and Lush Landscaping
This doesn’t only happen on rural land. Large suburban lots can be very attractive to deer. To the deer, all that open land with green grass and lush landscaping looks like a meadow filled with delicious food. In these environments, deer become much less wary of humans.
Vegetable Gardens
Deer and other critters understandably want to eat from vegetable gardens, where getting food is easy pickings. They have no way of knowing that it isn’t just food growing wild the way their other meals do. Unless they are effectively blocked from access, they will find some way to get in. Deer have favorite foods, but they’ll eat practically anything if it’s easy to get and they are hungry.
Fence Height
The fence must be tall enough so deer can’t jump over and it must be made of a material they can’t chew through. Chewing up fencing is a problem with other critters too, including rabbits and squirrels that are determined to get into an area with food. That’s especially true during times of year when food is scarce, mainly in winter and early spring.
A 4-ft. fence, which is standard for a chain-link structure, won’t get the job done since deer easily jump over that. One option is to fence off the garden with a structure this tall and install a cover on top. Another is to block off the garden with a fence specifically designed for this purpose, which can be purchased from a source such as Benner’s Gardens. This is useful for surrounding the perimeter of a backyard as well.
Additional Possibilities
Experts make additional recommendations for deterring deer from hanging around a property, but many people don’t find those options suitable. For example, they may be advised to only make plantings of items that the critters won’t eat. However, that prevents them from having a vegetable garden and, perhaps, some of their favorite flowers and trees. Deer also are known to become true scavengers during harsh winters.
Benners Gardens 