I live in a wonderful little town that is sort at the end of a road to nowhere. It's filled with green spaces, walking paths, and lovely gardens. But our town is growing rapidly and its edges are gradually nudging their way into the surrounding open spaces.
There is a field overgrown with holly trees a few blocks from our house and many of the local deer bed down there at night. Our yard has been part of a corridor they travel daily, especially in the spring with their young, as they make their way across this edge of town looking for food. Several years ago the neighbor behind us put up a fence between our properties. They said they were "really suffering" from the deer traipsing through their garden.
Across the street from us is a very old house that had a lot filled with ancient gnarled apple trees. For decades, deer nestled into the grass beneath the trees to give birth to their fawns. When the lot was sold, the apple trees came down and a big tall fence went up to keep the deer out.
We love our gardens here, and it is true that the deer can be destructive. But it is easy to make peace with them. We have a fence around the veggie patch to keep them out but they are otherwise welcome in our yard. We don’t plant tulip bulbs because the deer will eat them. But we have hundreds of happy daffodils that they leave alone. The deer nibbled at our apricot tree for years but it managed to thrive just the same. Now it is tall enough that they can no longer reach it and we are harvesting apricots. (Once in a while I strip some leaves from the tree for them because this seems to be a special treat.)
We love seeing these gentle creatures ambling through our yard or settling in for a nap beneath a tree. It takes a little bit of compromise to live with wildlife, but we wouldn’t trade their visits for the best-protected garden in the world!
There is a field overgrown with holly trees a few blocks from our house and many of the local deer bed down there at night. Our yard has been part of a corridor they travel daily, especially in the spring with their young, as they make their way across this edge of town looking for food. Several years ago the neighbor behind us put up a fence between our properties. They said they were "really suffering" from the deer traipsing through their garden.
Across the street from us is a very old house that had a lot filled with ancient gnarled apple trees. For decades, deer nestled into the grass beneath the trees to give birth to their fawns. When the lot was sold, the apple trees came down and a big tall fence went up to keep the deer out.
We love our gardens here, and it is true that the deer can be destructive. But it is easy to make peace with them. We have a fence around the veggie patch to keep them out but they are otherwise welcome in our yard. We don’t plant tulip bulbs because the deer will eat them. But we have hundreds of happy daffodils that they leave alone. The deer nibbled at our apricot tree for years but it managed to thrive just the same. Now it is tall enough that they can no longer reach it and we are harvesting apricots. (Once in a while I strip some leaves from the tree for them because this seems to be a special treat.)
We love seeing these gentle creatures ambling through our yard or settling in for a nap beneath a tree. It takes a little bit of compromise to live with wildlife, but we wouldn’t trade their visits for the best-protected garden in the world!
