I'm wondering if the mesh would even count as a "fence".
Deer
Might not but all you need is one neighbor to complain...
What is in back of your yard? Green space? - the deer have to be coming from somewhere. . . So, I wouldn't hesitate to put up an 8 foot fence with a 6 foot fence facing the road. I assume there are regulations regarding fencing front yards.
I am with pirl - and 8 foot mesh support for plants isn't *really* a fence. What if you planted a tall hedge but on the inside of the hedge you put the mesh up. That way the deer can't walk through the hedge to eat the rest of your plants, and the neighbours get to see a nice green hedge.
Even if I completely surrounded my property with tall hedges and an 8 ft mesh (not easy - perimeter is hundreds of feet long. One straight line edge is 208 feet long.) there would still be the driveway, where, according to my neighbors, they often stroll through.
That's where the dog stays - guarding the gate to the driveway :-)
I enlisted a favorite chipmunk for that - hasn't quite worked.
Do you live in a rural area? You seem to have a lot of wildlife. We only have squirrels to contend with - so I guess I should be grateful.
Well that, and thugs. Last night someone stole the stakes I used to rope off the "woodland" garden on the terrace. Honestly, how hard up to you have to be to steal bamboo stakes? As soon as this thunderstorm is over, I will have to remove the rest and the rope, and hope most civilized folk won't destroy the plants while they are still establishing themselves. Sigh . .
Suburbs. Sorry to hear about the theft.
yeah - I have to reallly think carefully about what I am doing in the terrace. Anyone who would steal bamboo stakes probably wouldn't have any qualms stealing plants . . . .
It's easier to pull pranks and steal the stakes, which can be tossed into shrubs somewhere else, than to arrive equipped with trowels and bags to remove plants but I do see your concern and sympathize with you.
In Kamloops, real estate developers were having problems with shrubbery being stolen. The cultprits were - get this - a physican and his wife! they had tons of money - but thought it was a lark, and believed that insurance companies would cover replacement costs.
No wonder Agatha Christie made doctors villians so often!
Shame on anyone who steals.
We have many farmstands with no one in attendance - strictly an honor thing. They've operated for many years out here. People are more prone to leaving $2.00 for $1.75 worth of fresh vegetables than they are to stealing, thankfully, or the owners wouldn't conduct business at all. The thefts that have been reported by the lone farmer who set up cameras and got the license plate number were by kids who had no use for the produce, just pranksters.
Exactly - honour - it seems like a virtue relegated to the past. One gets the impression that one is a fool or a sucker to act in any way other than self-interest. So much for altruism - and yet, thankfully, everyday we are given examples of people who quietly go about making the world a better place for their having lived.
I think kids trampling plants will be a bigger problem.
Yeah - kids and dogs. . . well, need to think of really tough plants with the ability to take revenge eg. rashes or serious thorns . . . ummmm . . . maybe not. don't want lawsuits.
I live in NH surrounded by forest, and we have deer constantly in our meadow. I keep them out of my vegetable garden by tying ribbons to a "string fence" that I run around the garden. The ribbons blow in the wind and they seem to keep the deer out of the garden. This year we have a pair of yearlings ("Knobby" because of his little knob antlers and "Sissy", his hungry sister). They have eaten my roses and all of my butterfly bush blooms but one. What's worse - I planted a sunflower house for my young grandsons. It now is missing one wall of sunflowers thanks to Knobby and Sissy. A couple of years ago we had an old woodchuck named Chucky who did major league damage in my veggie garden by tunneling under the fence. I located his hole at the edge of a juniper stand, circled it with a peace offering of primo vegetables in hopes that he'd be too full and lazy to venture away from his hole. No luck....he ate all of the peace offering and then went back to sample each of my tomatoes. I gave up and he didn't reappear the next spring.
I would only name them posthumously.
I applaud Victor's idea.
Hmmmm.....posthumously, eh? Well, I'm sure there's good logic behind that thinking, especially if Pirl is also on board with Victor's approach. I name all of the critters that frequent our farm so that my husband can ask, "So what did Knobby eat today?" Or so I can make it clear that our dog Molly was chasing "Monk" again....not just any ordinary chipmunk. It is a functional conversation-driven need that just evolved. Now, take "Holiday Mel", our moose who showed up on Columbus Day, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.......he is a legend among our friends who have seen him, and how would they refer to him if he were not named??
My rule only applies to deer.
I hear ya! But don't you have to have some method for distinguishing them as they charge around through your prized plantings? I guess past tense will do nicely.
Normally they do their damage early in the morning so I don't see them too often.
The wasps must be included in the posthumous listings!
Victor - I see our deer at all hours of the day. They graze our meadow pretty much at any time. I'm about to go out and thin the apples on my apple tree to put the compromised apples up at the top of the meadow in hopes that they will stay up there away from my roses and buddleia. Oh, I just remembered another trick that worked to keep deer from eating my lilacs and apples. I cut up panty hose and made little "pockets" that I filled with fur from our golden retriever and tied them on the branches. Not one chomp that year.
Pirl - I agree about the wasps! How do you keep them out of the bird boxes? I've had box abandonment by tree swallows and chickadees this year because wasps have come into the box and chased the birds away. Ugh.
My DH, Jack, got the big nest bombed last Sunday night, tried with the nest behind the trim above the kitchen door but they were nested, per the carpenter, in the eaves so my bright idea of plugging up the hole at 9 PM with caulking worked magic there. Now there at the back kitchen wall. I'm ready to get out my torch!
Okay - but what about naming the animals we like? For instance, we don't get many wasps, but we have LOTS of jolly, big, fat bumble-bees.
I like the bees and they don't bother me so I'll go for that but how can I tell which bee is which?
Well, we can pretend they are all clones of each other . . . so someone more clever than I come up with a creative name . . . Dave47? Victor? Harper? Pirl? Pixie?
How about "It"?
Sorry Michaela. I stink at naming things.
"It????" Gee, pirl - I know you can do better lol.
Wasn't "It" a character on either The Addam's family or The Munsters?
Addams Family
Well, if the name was good enough for them "It" is good enough for me.
Just killed another wasp hangout! I am getting paranoid.
Do the wasps look like bees??
Slimmer. Now I'm so brave I shoot at them with the wasp bomb on sight, during the day and they just drop in mid-air. What a powerful feeling.
Better than skeet shooting!
Satisfaction guaranteed!
Wasps look like this
Yellow jackets like this
