Deer Netting In Place

 Last year was the first year that I tried protecting the Daylilies from deer snacking by laying bird netting over them.  I had already successfully used it on Hosta a couple of years, and it also proved to be effective on the Daylilies, but I had some trouble with the buds and blooms being caught in the net.  I figured that I needed to somehow suspend the nets over the lilies so that hopefully, they would have enough space to bloom without being caught.  I estimated that I needed to raise them about 30" off the ground.  I have quite a few wire legs that hold my grow through grids but I needed taller ones.  Kinsman Company sells the grids and the leg separately, so this spring I ordered a bunch of 36" legs to round out my existing collection.

I am pretty happy with how they turned out.  It is a little difficult to photograph it because you can't really see it well until you walk up to it.  And that's perfect right?

These legs have curlicues at the end that catch the net

I had more than enough netting from last year, most cut to the right size already.  And I managed to fold them up and store them and not get them mixed up!

I let the net drape down about 8" to 10" on the ends and sides.  The nets are nice and taut so nothing should get caught up in it accidentally.

I also used a few plain garden stakes as tent poles to raise the center of larger areas of netting.

In some places I can clip the net to an existing fence.  The birds can't fly into this because of the 1" hardware cloth that blocks them.  They do fly through the larger grid so I have to keep the net lower.

At the corner is a stake that has sort of a shepherd's hook in the end

This does not mean that I won't have to spray repellent when the buds are forming up.  The netting is to back up the repellent spray.  Neither one is completely effective alone.  These nets will probably get chewed on a few times but with two layers of protection I ought to be able to save most of my flowers, even during rainy spells.