For many years I've been plagued by deer feasting on my garden plants. This year I'm trying a product called Trico, manufactured by the Austrian company Kwizda Agro that has gotten a great reputation here in Sweden. People have been able to grow tulips in deer infested gardens and so on, you know, purely science fiction stuff
I stopped growing most of the things deer like, but I'd love to be able to see crocuses bloom and not become decapitated by hungry deer, a tulip or two in the open garden would be nice and I've been heartbroken over when the deer started attacking my supposedly deer-resistant reticulated irises.
The active ingredient is 6.396% sheep fat. The product is water resistant once dried. The effect is supposed to persist 4-6 weeks. This was the main selling point to me as I wont be needing to reapply after rain.
A few days ago I treated crocuses and reticulated irises in full bloom and see no discoloration so far. Heuchera (what little that is left of them
) and daylily foliage has also been treated. Early days here and I'll try more plants as needed when they emerge. Hosta and lilies has never been eaten here and you can actually find hosta on some deer resistant lists in Sweden, which may seem weird, but so it is. I however plan to treat the martagon lilies(that are new to me) as soon as they appear. The reasoning here is that the foliage differs from normal lilies and deer are curios in nature - don't want them to discover a new delicacy!
Obviously hard to know if the stuff works or not. One could miss to treat a spot and the deer could go
. Likewise no guarantee that the deer actually comes to visit, so may apply it all for nothing. I suspect one also would have to accept deer taking a few tastes here and there as they already are used to eating these plants.
What I can say so far is that the recommended dose of 25ml of Trico to 100ml water is very difficult to use in my 5 liter pressure sprayer as it simply is to little liquid for it. This dose is supposed to be enough to treat 100 square meters and that is just laughable, even if I were able to use it all. In Sweden this product is ecologically certified, yet one should avoid contact with skin, eyes, clothes and wear protective gloves...
Not sure if this product is available yet in the US and the rest of the world and what it would be called, or if its just out in Europe, but I want to mention this anyway as not everyone may be aware. This is no recommendation to buy the stuff in anyway, do your own research and so on.
