I live in a very rural area. We own quite a few acres, so we have our share of wild animals. Since we have two dogs, the deer tend to stay away from the house, choosing instead to graze in our fields. Occasionally, they nibble on a hosta or two or perhaps discover a tasty morsel in my flower bed by the dining room.

This year, I’ve been savagely attacked! Twice!

I have a lot of perennials in my flower bed. Two lovely phlox plants that the butterflies and hummingbirds love and several Asiatic lillies of all different colors.  Last week, the phlox were on the verge of putting out their yearly flowers and my lillies had buds bursting to open.

I woke up one morning to find my phlox nibbled to half their size and two lillies sans buds!

To make matters worse, some horrid little bugs had chewed up my hibiscus so badly, the leaves had curled up and browned.

The horror!

So, yesterday, I went to our local nursery to buy a few replacement plants, so I would have some color in my garden and to find some kind of deer repellant to put on my plants to give them a chance to grow and maybe put out new flowers.

I purchased another variety of phlox, taller and with variegated leaves that had flowers ready to go, a couple of shorter plants with flowers about to bloom, and something that had no tag on it, but looks rather bushy and full with white flowers. We had a big rainstorm on the way, so I thought I’d wait until today to spray the new plants and the old ones with the deer stuff. It needed to dry on the plants, and I knew it would wash away with the rain.

I woke up this morning….and the deer had once again invaded my garden chomping down on brand new phlox, so it is now half its size…and re-attacking one of my other phlox plants, which was just starting to make a comeback!

UGH.

I’ve never had such deer problems!  It’s driving me mad.

Today, I am going to spray the heck out of everything in my flowerbed. We have two fields FULL of ripe hay. Why can’t they go eat that?

Kris