Preventing Deer Damage in the Winter

By Alyce Goldman

Once all your fall gardening is done you might think everything is complete but if you live where deer are a nuisance, get back outside for some self-defense. If you haven’t tackled “deer defense” this fall, here are some things you can do to get your plants through the winter.

The first tip is to keep deer from habitually visiting your garden in the future. It’s easier to maintain a beautiful landscape if deer are not nibbling on a regular basis. 

One way to do this is to provide screening. As you view your winter garden, determine if you can strategically plant “unfriendly” plants that will discourage deer from traveling through and screen the more tasty morsels from their view. It is often easier to see where to place screening plants in the winter landscape. Think about spiny, evergreen plants like Mahonia or American Holly (Ilex opaca) that will form a barrier and screen in all seasons.

That’s fine for the future, but what can you do to prevent significant damage from deer winter grazing right now?   

 You can create a barrier around specific important shrubs. For small shrubs, use nylon netting from a fabric store that is sold by the yard and is 72” wide. It comes in many colors but black or green are the least noticeable.  This netting is fine and will not trap birds or catch on spiny plants like hollies—this is important for spring removal.  To use this netting, guesstimate how much netting you will need, cut, wrap completely around shrub and then fold both ends together over once creating a “seam” and then use a standard stapler to keep it closed.  Gather the bottom closed and staple that closed too to avoid snouts eating from the bottom up.

Stapling it closed allows you to adjust it to your shrub or small tree and in the spring it is a cinch to pull it open.  Fold it up for storage and if there are large tears, just cut down to a smaller size for use next year on a smaller plant. With the 72” width, you can protect up to a six-foot tree or shrub. 

Spray on repellents work when the days are warmer but the scent is diminished as the temps drop. Handmade sachets of Milorganite hung at deer head height are easy and inexpensive to make using a loose weave fabric. If you do not sew, use snack sized bags with small holes punched in them with a small hole for a twist tie to be inserted into.  After winter use these “sachets” can be emptied on the ground as Milorganite is a good nitrogen fertilizer. 

You can also try applying clove, eucalyptus or peppermint oil to small cotton or wool strips and tying them at five-foot height on shrubs and trees.  In the spring you can drop these on the ground and they will disintegrate.

Young trees can be severely damaged and even snapped in half by bucks rubbing the velvet off their antlers. Protecting bark from buck rub is usually done in the fall by putting trunk wrap on young trees. Leave this protection up through the winter as an extra precaution. The protective wraps may also protect trees from being girdled by rodents eating the bark if we have a snowy winter. They can be re-used used for several years but should be taken off in the spring and put back on the following fall.

Another tactic which will take more time is to fully enclose an area with particularly susceptible plantings.  Rebar or fence posts with either plastic or metal fencing are great although the plastic fencing can collapse with a heavy snow if not properly taut.  Plastic is easier to roll up and use from year to year.

It may seem extra work to protect your plantings from hungry deer but when you consider the time, effort, and money it took to create your garden, why should the deer reap the benefits of that hard work?!

If you have any clever methods to prevent winter deer damage, please share them in the comments.