6 Ways to Protect Your Garden From Animals

Nature’s visitors, like deer, rabbits, and birds, are enjoyable to watch, but they soon become a nuisance when they venture into the garden. If you’ve noticed a just-ripe tomato suddenly disappear from the vine, you know the feeling! Here’s how to protect your garden from animals without resorting to harsh measures or questionable chemicals.

Animal pests can quickly ‘eat up’ and destroy your garden or landscape plants if they are not stopped.

Deer are beautiful and graceful, but they can also be destructive. They strip leaves from vines and snack on fruit bushes. Garden and landscape plants that deer like to eat include:

• Lettuce and tender greens
• Strawberries
• Fruit vines, trees, and shrubs
• Tulips
• Lilies
• Roses
• Ivy
• Hosta
• Pansy
• Bark, twigs, and leaves of most landscape trees and shrubs

How do I keep deer from destroying my garden and yard?

Methods to discourage Bambi from browsing include:

Cover vines, bushes, and young trees with nylon netting. Lift the netting weekly to prevent plants from growing through the openings.

The scent of bar soap is thought to keep deer away. Hang bars of soap in trees or shrubs. In addition, attach bars of soap to garden stakes and place them around the perimeter of your garden or yard to keep deer away.

Wrap the trunks of young trees with 4 ft. or taller sections of chicken wire or hardware cloth.

To protect large shrubs or trees, try a capsaicin spray. (Capsaicin is the ‘hot’ ingredient found in hot peppers). Fish emulsions and garlic sprays may also deter deer. Keep in mind deterrent sprays will need to be reapplied after rain.

The smell of rotten eggs makes an effective deer repellant. Make your own rotten egg spray by mixing five eggs in five quarts of water. Add mixture to a sprayer and drench your plants.

Wild rabbits are cute and fluffy critters, but they lose their charm when they nosh in a garden. Rabbits are herbivores. They love tender greens and will nibble them to the ground in no time!

Garden and landscape plants that rabbits like to eat include:

• Lettuce and greens
• Tomatoes
• Soft fruits
• Beans
• Peas
• Corn
• Cucumbers
• Hot peppers
• Mustard blooms
• Zinnias
• Dahlias
• Grasses and weeds
• The bark of young trees

 How do I keep wild rabbits from destroying my garden and yard?

Effective ways to keep Peter Rabbit from making your garden a salad buffet include:

Plant your garden in a raised bed or container. Moving the plants up from ground level ensures they are out of reach of rabbits and other small critters.

Spray your plants with a mixture of 1 teaspoon of hot sauce to one quart of water. Rabbits won’t like the taste.

Surrounding your garden with a fence is one of the best ways to keep bunnies and other small invaders away. A 3 ft. fence will keep small varmints away.

A 5 ft. fence should keep deer from munching on your growing produce and flowers. A DIY fence made of chicken wire and metal stakes is an inexpensive option.

If you enjoy watching bunnies but want to keep them out of the garden, plant a patch of clover away from the garden and near leaf cover. Munching their own clover patch tends to keep cottontails content.

Wild birds are an important part of a healthy yard, but they wear out their welcome when they stay for dinner. Most wild birds love fruit.

Medium-sized birds such as Blue Jays, Baltimore Orioles, blackbirds, grackles, and starlings will steal berries from a blackberry bush or help themselves to a nearly ripe tomato.

How do I keep wild birds from eating my garden?

If you have low-growing plants like strawberries, place wire cloches or cages over the plants. Or, bend the chicken wire into a domed cover. Wrap it around and over the plant – secure it at the bottom.

Place netting over fruiting plants as soon as new fruits appear. Securely fasten netting around the plant and at ground level to keep birds from sneaking underneath.

Scare birds away with a ‘scare eyes’ balloon. A scare eyes balloon is a large, inflatable ball with large “eyes” on the surface. The reflective eyes resemble a predator’s eye, which startles birds and scares them away. Just inflate, apply the eye stickers, and hang them in your yard or garden.

Worry less and enjoy your garden more with these tips for protecting your garden from animals.

Interested in how to rid your garden of insect pests? Learn How to Protect Your Plants from These 5 Common Garden Pests.