Too Many Tomatoes : Fall Chores ~ Deer Proofing

We have been doing fall garden clean-up and protecting everything that needs deer protection in the winter. We put one fence around all of the front shrubs, There isn't much here that the deer like to eat but they will still taste things. Last winter the fence sagged between the T-posts and they did jump over several times. They didn't find anything they wanted but they don't need to be tromping around in there so this year I added some garden stakes in between the T-posts just to stiffen the fence and hopefully they won't see the center as a weakness.

Every year they eat the myrtle ground cover which doesn't really hurt it or bother me but last year they couldn't believe it was all eaten up so they kept excavating in there every night, digging holes and throwing mulch in the lawn. The only way to stop that is to lay wire fencing down on the ground to stop the digging. I pinned the corners with earth staples.

There are several plants that are evergreen through the winter and even if they're not appealing in the summer, when you've been eating nuts and twigs for three months and you come across green leaves peaking out of the snow, it doesn't matter so much if you like the taste. The Penstemon has gotten big enough that the wire squares I put over them the year before were too small and inadequate so I left them uncovered last year and they were decimated. It took them longer than usual to start looking nice in the spring so I didn't want a repeat of that.

I cut larger squares of 1" hardware cloth but pinning the corners down to rock and landscape fabric isn't easy so I'm trying a single landscape spike with a washer driven into the center of the plant.

The washers I had on hand were a little too small, but use what you have... so I added a square of corrugated cardboard which should hold up enough to keep it pinned down under snow. If not I can get larger washers. The spike is in there pretty good and doesn't come out unless you pull straight up.

The deer are starting to try things that they have left alone up to now. The Supertunias got munched on so those got pulled out. I can see the tracks in the dewy grass each morning and I see blooms missing here and there, but nothing major.