How I Learned to Live With the Destructive Deer in My Garden

I DON’T have anything against deer—except when they treat my garden like it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet in Las Vegas. Sadly, one big fat smelly deer thinks my yard is the “Bacchanal” spread at Caesars Palace. She starts with an appetizer of rose buds. Then she hits the heirloom gladiolus and scarfs down the young fruit on the espaliered apple tree. Worst, she makes a palate cleanser of my husband’s precious lemon tree.

Which caused a recent crisis—and forced me to examine my relationship to nature. The other evening at twilight I heard my husband muttering about “the last straw” before going into the closet for an oversize slingshot designed to fling tennis balls for dogs to retrieve. By the time I caught up to him, he was on the front porch poised like William Tell. Only he wasn’t aiming for the apple—he was aiming for the deer. “Wait!” I shouted, jumping in front of him. “Stop—look!” Standing behind the mother deer were two white-spotted fawns. They could have starred in a “Bambi” remake with their enormous, innocent, limpid eyes. At that moment I would have gladly ripped my husband’s stupid lemons from the highest branches and fed them to the darling, sweet babies by hand. “Take whatever you need, honey,” I whispered to the mother.

(snip)

For advice I called Christian Douglas, a landscape designer near me in San Rafael, Calif., who specializes in mixing edibles and native plants. Instead, he suggested, I should install deer-resistant plants like salvia and rosemary and lavender, thyme and catmint. “Anything aromatic, they tend not to like,” he said. “What about my roses?” “Fences. Walls. Physical barriers. A solid fence because if they can’t see what’s on the other side they typically won’t jump over it,” he said.

“And that always works?” “Yes. Well. Usually.” “Usually?” I asked.

(snip)

I was still deciding whether to fortify my own garden when I saw one of the little fawns had an injured leg and was skipping awkwardly on three legs behind its mother. Oh no! I phoned one of the world’s pre-eminent deer veterinarians, Dr. John Fletcher, who lives in Scotland. “Don’t worry, if it’s a fracture, deer have an amazing ability to recover,” said Dr. Fletcher, author of “Gardens of Earthly Delight: The History of Deer Parks” “I’ve seen a compound fracture with the bone sticking through the skin heal in six months. Besides, there isn’t a thing you can do but keep your fingers crossed.” I planted another rose bush, right next to where the fawns sleep.

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