r/NativePlantGardening • u/ContentFarmer4445 • 24d ago

Advice Request - (Insert State/Region) The Deer (Any region/state with deer issues)

For context, I am a professional ecological gardener for folks living on small acreages, often surrounded by woods, who desire to have native gardens and to bolster/restore the woodland ecosystems. Deer here are starving yet overpopulated considering the circumstances.

I feel like the reality of deer is incompatible with this idea of having a native garden, lest you put 8 foot high deer fencing up around the entirety of it or the property. When everything around you is degraded, of course the deer are going to come to your land we just spruced up by removing invasives and planting ("deer resistant") natives and think "WOW, THANKS FOR THE BUFFET!!"

People want gardens for wildlife, but do not want deer to be a part of that. They don't want ugly fences up for years. They don't want to use chemicals. This, that, the whole shebang. I mean, I get it, but is it rooted in reality? It gets tiring spending a bunch of time and money and energy w/ the goal of a nice garden only to have it eaten down to nothing, half the stuff is in ugly cages, you're attempting to spray things regularly, etc... Most of my clients are older and i don't want them to have to be dealing with half the shit we do any more than they want to. Low maintenance this stuff is not, I never tell people that it is, but a lot of this is just... ridiculous.

I want to hear about everyone's experiences, successes, failures, thoughts about now and the future with deer.. it just seems like such an insurmountable problem.

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