Are you constantly frustrated with deer eating the plants in your garden, flowerbeds or the landscaping around the yard? Welcome to the club. You’re part of a group that counts its membership in the millions of people worldwide. In fact, it’s commonly stated that in the United States alone deer cause about $250 million in damage annually to residential properties. Regardless if that estimate is accurate, I think we can agree that the number is incredibly high and there’s a lot of very annoyed folks out there because of the impacts of having too many deer around their homes. Unfortunately, my wife and I are card-carrying members.
For goodness’ sake, all a guy or gal wants to do is grow some hostas and vegetables! As hard as we try, all too often it’s the neighborhood deer causing our horticultural woes. What’s a green thumb to do?
Options to prevent local deer browsing your plants include a variety of tactics; some that work well and others that don’t. Some are expensive while others cost nothing but a little ingenuity on your part. Some you’ve maybe tried and others are brand new ideas.
What follows is a summary I’ve put together for homeowners trying to stop deer from eating their plants, comparing the relative effectiveness, cost, durability, and likelihood of failure across a number of deer deterrent strategies.
Fencing & Barriers
If they can’t get to it, they can’t eat it. Although often expensive and unsightly, physical barriers typically offer the greatest effectiveness over the longest duration, especially in high deer density areas.
Tall Perimeter Fence
- Effectiveness: 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 (highest)
- Cost: 💰💰💰💰 (high upfront)
- Longevity: 10-30+ years
- Maintenance: moderate (depending on manufacturing)
- Risk of failure: low
Summary: Deer can jump anything under 8 feet, so it must be tall. Poor design, installation or gaps in fence can lead to failure or unintended deer fatality. Zoning restrictions on fence height may be an issue. Most reliable long-term solution but requires capital-intensive.
Electric Fence
- Effectiveness: 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 (very high when installed correctly and kept on)
- Cost: 💰💰💰 (moderate to high)
- Longevity: temporary to 10+ years
- Maintenance: high (constant electrical charge, vegetation control)
- Risk of failure: low to moderate
Summary: Power failure may result in immediate vulnerability. Legal and/or HOA restrictions could limit use in residential areas. Requires a learning curve to keep active and functional, including installation for best performance. Best “performance per dollar” for larger areas but requires a lot of upkeep. Also, some of the benefits of deer exclusion can be gained without electrifying the fence (see next option).
Alternative Fence Designs
Research shows that because deer have poor visual depth perception, designing the fence with a three-dimensional perspective can provide enough of a psychological barrier to deer that they don’t attempt to jump over it. This can be accomplished with a double fence design, angling all or the top portion of the fence outward at 45 degrees or using other obstructions in front of the fence.
- Effectiveness: 🏆🏆🏆to🏆🏆🏆🏆 (moderate)
- Cost: 💰 to 💰💰💰 (low to moderate)
- Longevity: 1 to 10+ years
- Maintenance: moderate (depending on manufacturing)
- Risk of failure: low to moderate
Summary: Deer can adapt over time. Less effective under high browsing pressure. Good budget option if cheaper or less materials are used, but not reliable long-term if fence doesn’t fully exclude deer based on their ability to jump up to 8 feet. So, it can save money, but nothing beats building the fence tall enough.
Individual Plant Protection
- Effectiveness: 🏆🏆🏆🏆 (moderate to high for specific plants)
- Cost: 💰💰 (moderate but scales poorly to protect all plants)
- Longevity: 1 to 5+ years
- Maintenance: moderate to high
- Risk of failure: low
Summary: Labor intensive to install individual cages, netting or tree tubes. Deer may browse edges, especially in winter when food is scarce or in areas of overpopulation. May be difficult to allow plants to grow in a healthy way and still protect them. Seasonal storage of protective materials, if necessary. Ideal for trees/shrubs, not entire landscapes.
Repellents
Use their amazing sense of smell against ‘em. Household items like soaps (specifically those containing tallow fatty acids) or strong aromatic foods already found in your kitchen (garlic, egg solids, hot pepper, etc.), commercial products made from thiram, human hair clippings, milorganite (fertilizer made from human waste), and even predator urine (bobcat/coyote) can effectively repel deer at low costs, but these products tend to be high maintenance and protection works only as hard as you do.
Commercial Sprays
- Effectiveness: 🏆🏆🏆 (moderate to high initially)
- Cost: 💰💰 (moderate, but ongoing)
- Longevity: days to weeks; can significantly reduce visits when maintained
- Maintenance: high, frequent reapplication (rain washes off)
- Risk of failure: moderate to high
Summary: Deer habituate easily. Failure if application lapses. Good short-term defense, high long-term cost.
Do-It-Yourself Repellents
- Effectiveness: 🏆to🏆🏆 (low)
- Cost: 💰 (very low)
- Longevity: days; can reduce visits when maintained
- Maintenance: moderate, frequent reapplication
- Risk of failure: high
Summary: Inconsistent results. Failure if application lapses. Frequent reapplication is required. Cheap but labor-intensive and unreliable alone.
Predator Scents / Urine
- Effectiveness: 🏆🏆 to 🏆🏆🏆 (variable)
- Cost: 💰 (low)
- Longevity: days to weeks; can reduce visits when maintained
- Maintenance: moderate, frequent reapplication
- Risk of failure: high
Summary: Deer quickly adapt, especially when food pressure is high. Social/odor issues. Failure if application lapses. Supplemental at best; not a primary solution.
Behavioral & Electronic Deterrents / Hazing
Leverage their fear as a prey species to alter behavior. Deterrent systems that elicit a response from deer via triggered motion, lights or sound usually only provide protection for a short period of time, so best used as a stopgap defense. However, they eventually become brave enough to ignore it.
Motion-Activated Deterrents
- Effectiveness: 🏆🏆 to 🏆🏆🏆 (low to moderate)
- Cost: 💰💰 (low)
- Longevity: hours to days
- Maintenance: moderate (constant power and water source necessary)
- Risk of failure: moderate to high
Summary: Options include sprinklers, flashing lights, noise makers, and others. Sprinklers require water access. Deer acclimate to these kinds of deterrents over time. Good for gardens; works best combined with other methods.
Visual or Auditory Deterrents
- Effectiveness: 🏆🏆 to 🏆🏆🏆 (low to moderate)
- Cost: 💰💰 (low)
- Longevity: hours to days
- Maintenance: moderate
- Risk of failure: high
Summary: Deer quickly learn that scarecrows, ultrasonic devices and other options are harmless. Temporary deterrent only.
Guard Dogs
- Effectiveness: 🏆🏆🏆to🏆🏆🏆🏆 (moderate to high)
- Cost: 💰💰 (low to moderate; but upkeep for pet care and safety is high)
- Longevity: ongoing
- Maintenance: constant supervision
- Risk of failure: moderate
Summary: Deer can become aggressive during certain times of year. May need to employ barrier for your pet. Can be useful in protecting small areas but dog needs to be willing to bark and deer can learn to keep out of reach or may tolerate barking.
Landscaping Strategies
Try to outsmart ‘em through plant choice or design. Planting alternative species that are less desirable to deer, such as fragrant herbs, decorative grasses, fine-textured, fuzzy plants, or those that have natural defensive mechanisms (thorns, toxins/compounds, etc.) can limit browsing damage up to a point…but, hungry deer usually find a way to eat if there is nothing else available.
Deer-Resistant Plants
- Effectiveness: 🏆🏆🏆 (moderate)
- Cost: 💰 to 💰💰 (low)
- Longevity: seasonally variable based on species selection and deer population
- Maintenance: low
- Risk of failure: moderate
Summary: Deer still eat many alternative options when under pressure. Works best as part of a system. Reduces damage, doesn’t eliminate it.
Plant Placement & Diversity
- Effectiveness: 🏆🏆 to 🏆🏆🏆 (low to moderate)
- Cost: 💰 (low)
- Longevity: variable
- Maintenance: low
- Risk of failure: high
Summary: This tactic uses distance from human structure, mixing desirable/undesirable species. Deer sample new plants anyway as part of their overall diet strategy. Works best as part of a system. Deer eventually acclimate and lose fear selecting plants close to perceived danger. Helps but this tactic is usually not sufficient alone.
Minimal Intervention
Raise your white flag rather than deer raising theirs. This requires a major adjustment to your horticultural expectations. Accept that you can’t grow what you want, or accept the damage that comes with living in an area with deer. Regardless, this is the least expensive option.
Do Nothing to Stop Deer
- Effectiveness: 🏆 (very low)
- Cost: none
- Longevity: no protection
- Maintenance: none
- Risk of failure: high
Summary: Keep planting what you want, but surrender all efforts to stop the deer. Results in partial to total plant loss. Relies solely on deer population reduction. This option is only viable if damage is acceptable.
Don’t Plant Anything
- Effectiveness: 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 (very high)
- Cost: none
- Longevity: n/a
- Maintenance: none
- Risk of failure: zero
Summary: Complete abstinence. Accept your fate: If you don’t plant anything, they can’t eat it.
Legal Hunting
Take ownership of the problem, and be part of the deer overpopulation solution. Management of deer density through lethal removal is the only long-term solution to these problems in reality. Everything else is just ignoring or deflecting the issue to other areas. It’s our fault there are too many deer on the landscape, and suburban deer hunting can be quite effective when applied with a scientific, socially-acceptable approach. The benefits of contributing to the conservation of all wildlife, as well as sourcing local, sustainable meat are a bonus. Often, legal hunting works best when done in combination with other tactics and/or applied through a neighborhood deer reduction effort.
Regulated Hunting
- Effectiveness: 🏆🏆🏆to🏆🏆🏆🏆 (moderate to high, especially when paired with other efforts like community hunting programs and deterrents)
- Cost: 💰 (low; but hunting gear and license fees needs to be considered)
- Longevity: immediate relief, but deer from nearby areas may move in so it’s a constant effort when applied independent of other tactics
- Maintenance: none
- Risk of failure: low to moderate
Summary: Targets problem animals causing damage. Safety and legal concerns with shooting ordinances. Access restrictions. Not feasible everywhere. Can be effective locally and provides recreation and venison; but it’s rarely a standalone fix.
Our Experience
Effective deer deterrence often requires a multi-faceted approach, with both research and our personal experience confirming that installing physical barriers is the most reliable strategy, followed by a consistent rotation of other tactics.
We’ve personally tried several of the above categories, including tall and alternative fencing around our vegetables and landscaping, visual deterrents, various landscape design strategies, acceptance of the damage to complete abandonment of growing what we want, and, of course, hunting.
Being a diehard hunter, I try to kill a few deer from the small, 7-acre property where our house sits as well as off our neighbors’ land where I have permission. I like the challenge of bow hunting and we love the food it provides; it also adds a certain twist knowing that the deer traveling through these parcels are the same ones constantly munching on our flowers. However, by no means have I fixed the problem just through my individual hunting efforts. Like many states, New York has an overarching deer density problem; that’s why the Department of Environmental Conservation is currently advocating for a statewide increase in antlerless harvest.
Proven Strategies
After a lot of trial and error, we ultimately decided to install a semi-permanent fence around our raised bed vegetable garden. It provided the best protection and the look of having it enclosed is acceptable.
Obviously, the more area you fence, the better and aesthetically pleasing the product, the greater the cost. To keep the costs down and make it tall enough, I built the garden fence out of T-posts, a 2-foot runner of welded wire along the ground and 7-foot-high deer proof plastic above that. Although it requires occasional upkeep and isn’t that appealing to look at, it has offered 100% protection (from deer) for over 10 years; I’ve only had to repair the fence and replace the handmade gate once each over that time.
For the purposes of beautification, we decided not to fence the landscaping and flowers around the immediate perimeter of our house. There, we’ve tried a combination of cottage-style and minimalist plantings paired with choosing species with extremely low palatability ratings, eliminating certain deer-favorites all together, and locating the most desirable plants as far from their reach as possible…it’s amazing what and where a deer will eat when they need to.
To our dismay and after a major adjustment of expectations, we’ve simply dealt with deer eating some of the plants in this section of our yard. Our solution has been to grow what we want but tweak the arrangement until the amount of damage is at a level we can live with. We could try a sensory repellent or some other hazing deterrent, but, at least for us, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
Finally, we’ve given up all hope for a horticultural “island” in the middle of our front yard. It’s the easiest target to deer because of the location. We had the best luck keeping herbaceous and small woody plants alive with an alternative fence design there, but we disliked how it looked. After removing the fence, what remains are two dogwood and lilac shrubs that have grown tall enough to be above browsing height with only mulch at their feet. It looks nice, but it doesn’t exactly fit my wife’s vision; that’s why we are thinking about fencing our entire yard at some point.
There’s absolutely a cost versus risk tradeoff with many of these options, and generally the greater you can invest in the problem from the start will offer the longest prevention. However, there really is no single perfect solution. As you can see from our journey, or may have experienced yourself, you’ll likely need to compromise to come up with a plan that works without giving up too much on your landscaping or gardening goals (or bank account).