As more homes are being built in the foot hills above town the deer seem to have become habiuated to living in the neighborhoods around our small city. These were in my back yard, I wish the focus was better.......

Wow, quite the family!

Wow, I think you have it worse than I do! We have small groups coming by near dawn and dusk, but don't see them much in the daytime.

Fine looking deer, that buck sure has a large rack.

We see deer just about every day, at any time of day, yesterday afternoon a doe and her twins rested on the front lawn for a few hours. I don't mind them as long as I can keep them out of the back yard, it's fenced and we use that horrible smelling Plantskydd.

The only time that they bother me is in the spring when they eat the buds and new growth off of my roses. They seem to prefer specific ones every year.

I guess the rosebuds are extra tasty. Here they eat just about every plant and shrub, forget planting cedars, they love them.

They leave my Hostas alone????????

I guess you have been lucky, mine are all in the back yard so safe unless one jumps the fence, which has happened on a few occasions but it was during the winter so no harm done. I think the deer population is a little out of control here, during the winter we have counted 11 roaming the streets at on time.

Depends on the deer, Paul.

Don't count on them only damaging your roses in spring. As they raise their young in town, they teach their offspring that the only place to find food is in gardens. No matter how much natural forage is around, town deer just don't know that anything outside of a garden is edible.

Last week, my roses were clean pruned by the deer chomp method. Very effective ...

They are deadly on tulips, eyonymus , pfitzers, and some other evergreens here.

Even tho' heucheras are said to be deer resistant, the deer up here don't read and consider them to be deer candy.

Once deer decide that the only food to be found is in gardens, the list gets much longer ...

They've had 5 years of drought to learn where the food is.

True, drought makes them more desperate...less food for them other than yards. I didn't start out feeding wildlife. That only happened when the drought got so bad before. It just broke my heart! And once you become a feeder of wildlife, it's hard to ever stop, kind of addicting.

It's turning out to be a very snowy winter, and for the past three nights the temperature has dropped to 5F. This morning the deer finally were hungry enough to raid my bird tables in broad daylight.




They have not yet started digging for greenery in the flowerbeds, but it's only a matter of time. They know exactly where under the snow the helianthemum and creeping phlox plants are located.