Front Porch: Deer decimate flowers, despite efforts to scare them away

This year the deer are winning.

It’s always something of a battle to keep my geraniums out of the bellies of our neighborhood deer, but I usually prevail … until October, when I feel they need the nutrition for the coming winter more than I need the beauty of the flowers in my front yard.

It’s then that I stop my preventative measures and let them have at it.

I do not feel so kindly about them when they decimate my flowers in June, however, as they are doing this year, despite my efforts to ward them off. Visions of venison stew are dancing in my head.

Our house sits along a deer migratory path. There is a permanently indented-in-the-soil trail through our backyard – tamped down and weed-free due to the volume of hooves through it this time of year, and the depression clearly visible even when snow covers the ground – as deer travel through on their way to Glenrose and Browne’s Mountain.

The backyard is rife with deer scat, which is fine, as the yard is in au naturel condition, disturbed only by the watering of one rhubarb plant and two fruit trees and my weekly raking of pine needles. Once a year, my husband knocks down the weeds, but other than that, it’s a lovely place for deer to pass through and occasionally leave their babies in the tall grass for a while as they go out and forage.

Sure, some will poke around in the front yard a bit, but not too much – enough, however, that I have to plant deer-proof flowers out there. Marigolds, salvia, dianthus.

I save the tomatoes and tasty plants for containers on our deck, which is accessible from the outdoors by two staircases up from our downward sloping backyard, and which no deer have yet attempted to climb.

I do have a small strip of dirt bordering some shrubs at the front of the house that looks lovely with a row of geraniums in it, and every year, I plant some there. And then begins the deer-proofing.

Technically, geraniums are supposed to be deer-resistant(ish), but clearly, those who think so haven’t met the migratory deer in my neck of the woods.

Most successful has been putting hunks of Irish Spring soap in a number of those metal tea balls you can buy at the grocery store and hanging them off stakes in and amongst the geraniums. Works well, as deer are repelled by the smell. Then toward the end of the season, I remove the soap and let the feast begin.

But early in the season this year, I came out in the morning and saw several flowerless stems among my geraniums. And sometimes whole plants pulled out of the ground. Hmm, what’s up with that? Clearly, reinforcements were needed.

I purchased some bait boxes containing a substance that smells (to deer) like coyote urine – also said to be very effective at keeping deer away – to add to my arsenal, and put a number of them out as well.

But the geranium munching continued. Step three: I made up a batch of deer repellant, which I’d used years ago, consisting of dish detergent, eggs, milk and water, and sprayed that all around. The deer were unimpressed.

A friend who lives out in the country near Cheney told me she’s also noticed that the deer are particularly aggressive this year. But a theory as to why this might be happening specifically at my house occurred to me the other day when I was out weeding in the front yard. A fawn scooted out from under the overhang of the house and scampered off. Clearly, his mother had parked him there while she went off to graze.

Normally, when the grass is high in the back yard, the fawns get left there. It’s quieter and more secluded. But this year the grass was cut down out back (fire hazard and all). Mama deer had to find a new spot, and the safety and shade under the overhang at the front of the house was perfect, it seems. It was also right next to the geraniums. And right by a sprinkler head, where a nice little puddle forms early in the morning.

It’s been a hot year. And I’m guessing that when she comes back for her baby, this particular mama deer sees the tasty flowers before her eyes and holds her nose, so to speak, and has a bite or three to eat.

Now if I were a thoughtful person, I’d let her eat away and then maybe replace the flowers with something else. But I’m only thoughtful in this regard when we get to October, so the battle continues.

Meantime, it’s Deer: 17 (flower heads), Me: 0.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by e-mail at upwindsailor@comcast.net.