Bloody deer!

[Walkacrossthesand]

Aaargh! Before the weekend I looked at my little ballerina apple tree, all of 2feet tall but covered in blossom. Aaah, I thought, how lovely. Went away for weekend, came back - saw a young deer in neighbours front garden at dusk , unusual - and then found my little tree stripped of blossom! Just stalk ends of branches left, and 1 little bit of blossom. Bloody, bloody, bloody deer - all that potential destroyed in a few nibbles. I have 2 new apple trees too that I'm trying to 'espalier ' - their blossom looks ok so far, maybe because its too near the wire for the deer to eat - but any tips for whether netting is enough or whether I need to fence trees in, gratefully appreciated. So gutted!

I don't have a deer problem but hares keep eating my trees. I had chicken fencing surrounding the young cherry and apple trees. The bloody things bent it down and ate nearly a whole apple tree and did a fair bit of damage to the cherry. They are determined. So for next winter, I plan to reinforce the chicken fencing with wooden stakes. It's an eyesore but a necessary evil.

grazeoff i think its called. its in a small bottle you buy from garden centre, you dilute and spray on plants. where i have forgotten to spray plants they eat them, sprayed ones they leave alone. you do every 6 weeks in growing season.

Thanks dreaming, I'll look into that!

No suggestions but plenty of sympathy.

We have deer in our garden every day - we call ours Deirdre and Daphne - they've been coming for years and we think they are mum and daughter ( in practice they could be different deer every day). One of them is blind in one eye so we feel a bit sorry for her.

Ours eat all of the red and orange flowers - we can come down to chomped off tops of tulips any morning. They love geraniums and they eat orange and purple violas. But not yellow daffs.

If we remember, which clearly we don't always, we put wire mesh over the tops of baskets and bowls at night but that doesn't help with tall flowers or the borders.

We've fenced off as much as we can - we close the gates at night too but last time she was here, I watched her squeeze under a hedge where I didn't know a space existed. So all our efforts were pointless.

Neighbours have high level wire mesh and even barbs round their gardens and one neighbour even has electric fences round his roses!

We are blessed living where we live but we can never count on our flowers still being there in the morning.....

www.grazers.co.uk it was 13.99 but money well spent as i've been using it for a couple of years.

Thank you dreaming!