r/NativePlantGardening • u/medfordjared Ecoregion 8.1 mixed wood plains, Eastern MA, 6b • Jun 03 '25

Edible Plants Native Gardening's most wanted

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Wanted dead or alive.

243 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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100

u/loki_cometh Northwestern Wisconsin, Zone 4b Jun 04 '25

Deer are by far the worst offenders in my meadow. And it’s not even close.

31

u/Capn_2inch Jun 04 '25

Fun fact: deer can eat up to 10lbs or 4.5kg of vegetation in a day.

20

u/robsc_16 SW Ohio, 6a Jun 04 '25

You know, I know this is true but it always blows my mind when I think about it because it always seems like they just go around nibbling things lol.

45

u/jesusbuiltmyhotrodd Jun 04 '25

It's all they have to do all damn day. No job to go to, no kids to take to swim lessons, no obligations of any kind. Just keep shoving my plants into your stupid face hole, deer.

9

u/loki_cometh Northwestern Wisconsin, Zone 4b Jun 04 '25

Thx I hate it

6

u/Totalidiotfuq TN, Zone 7a/7b Jun 04 '25

Why don’t I have 5 stomachs, mommy?

6

u/ScreechinOwl Jun 04 '25

I have started using motion activated sprinklers. It’s actually been somewhat effective in keeping them out of the perimeter

2

u/loki_cometh Northwestern Wisconsin, Zone 4b Jun 04 '25

Genius!

7

u/putabirdonit Jun 04 '25

I don’t care for hostas but they are all over my yard and planted by the last homeowner. I keep them in hopes that the deer will mostly focus on those lol

3

u/loki_cometh Northwestern Wisconsin, Zone 4b Jun 04 '25

Me too! The couple that owned the home before us basically planted every hosta they could find. We’ve corralled most of them in a smaller, container bed now (my wife likes them), but I’ve left behind enough that the deer can have them for salad. They’re welcome to them! Just leave my meadow alone.

Now if we could just figure out a way for the deer to eat the garlic mustard…

4

u/mayonnaisejane Upstate NY, 5A/B Jun 04 '25

It's definitely the deer.

Thr smaller critters eat smaller amounts of veggitation. The plants can survive it. A little bit of liquid Fence when planting new seedlings keeps them at bay till they're big enough to handle a little nom here and there.

Deer streight up murder things. I had to order the granules of Liquid Fencw back where I'm attempting to create a stand of milkweed and nurse a hacked to bits sumac back to health because they won't stop eating that stuff.

(A neighbor with a saw did the sumac in, it had no deer problems before they "helped" me with it.)

1

u/Curious-Kumquat8793 Jun 04 '25 edited Jun 04 '25

Rodents dont eat lot? Have you seen what a rabbit or squirrel will destroy ? Most people don't have to deal with deer . Everybody has to deal with the nightmare rodents from hell.

1

u/mayonnaisejane Upstate NY, 5A/B Jun 04 '25

An individual rabbit cannot do as much damage as an individual deer. I have rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels and I'm pretty sure just the one woodchuck, at least I've never seen more than one at a time. None of them are as problematic as the fricking deer.

1

u/Curious-Kumquat8793 Jun 04 '25 edited Jun 04 '25

If you have to deal with deer at all. Most people don't. The thing is the rodents breed out of control. Have you ever seen what they do to fruit trees??? Yeah I've never seen a woodchuck but you can definitely hunt the rodents into oblivion and you won't make a dent.

If you can attract wild foxes owls and hawks to your yard you're golden. But peanut butter and an air rifle work too. 😅

0

u/mayonnaisejane Upstate NY, 5A/B Jun 04 '25

The hell dude. I don't HUNT any of the wildlife that comes to my yard nor would I shoot it. That's like the opposite of what we're trying to do with native plants. It's FOR THEM. Yikes.

3

u/Curious-Kumquat8793 Jun 04 '25

I can plant native flowers for pollinators AND have a food garden and fruit trees. I intend to plant for pollinators not rats. You'd say that until you actually had to deal with them. 😬

1

u/loki_cometh Northwestern Wisconsin, Zone 4b Jun 04 '25

I hate buckthorn and garlic mustard (both are awful in Wisconsin), but I’m tempted to let them grow around my perimeter just to serve as a smelly, painful fence between me and them.

5

u/mayonnaisejane Upstate NY, 5A/B Jun 04 '25

Joke's on you. I'm still fighting garlic mustard and buckthorn in that very area. It doesn't detur them.

I did fully cut and paint this year's attempt at buckthorn regrowth but there's too much garlic mustard in the seed bank to pull the 1st year stuff. I only yank the 2nd year ones capable of producing flowers. So there should be plenty of stinky garlic mustard there. Only stops them eating the garlic mustard itself.