My previous house was surrounded by over an acre of beautiful tall trees. In summer they offered the gift of their shade and cloaked the house with a canopy of privacy. Besides the mountain of discarded leaves in the fall, the only drawback to this idyllic arboreal setting was that I could only grow shade-loving plants in my yard. Grass is not a shade loving plant. On one of the areas in my yard where the trees were particularly thick and therefore devoid of grass, I decided to plant a shade garden.
I trotted off to the library to research what types of plants thrive in Michigan in the shade. Armed with my checkbook and newfound knowledge, I headed to the nearest nursery. Hardy and attractive, hostas, impatiens, and violets were among the shade-loving perennials that I decided would be an attractive mix to adorn the barren areas under my trees. Much poorer monetarily, but rich with the spirit of getting in touch with nature, I spent the next few days planting and tenderly caring for my new leafy charges. 
Over the following couple of weeks I lovingly tended to my new garden’s every need. I watered, weeded, fertilized and fussed over my delicate and expensive horticultural Eden. My shade garden was shaping up nicely. Then disaster struck.
One morning, coffee cup in hand, I walked out to my lovely garden to admire my babies. To my horror, what I saw instead of healthy new plants were violet and hosta stumps. All that was left of my colorful impatients were half-inch stems sticking out of the ground. I couldn’t understand what could have caused so much damage. I knew that I had the offspring of about the twentieth generation of resident bunnies frolicking in the yard, but I couldn’t imagine how they could have caused that much damage. Closer inspection and my superior sleuthing abilities soon revealed the culprit. The evidence was clear. There, between the hosta stumps, hoof prints told the story of the sad demise of my lovely shade garden. Overnight, deer had discovered the delectable delight of dining on my hostas.
Almost in tears I ran into the house. I had to somehow save what was left of my shade garden. I searched through my personal phone book and listed the friends and acquaintances I could contact who might have suggestions on how to rid myself of my unwelcome nocturnal dining guests.
The first person I called was a friend who is a deer hunter. After all, who would better know the habits of the hoofed creatures than their predators? “What you need to do,” he said, “is to run some heavy duty extension cords to the area and buy one of those lights that is triggered by motion. Install the light on one of the trees and plug it into the extension cord. When the deer walk into the area the light will go off and startle them.” My friend’s advice sounded beyond my abilities in its complexity, plus I doubted that it would be very effective. First of all, the distance between the nearest electrical outlet and the nibbled plant area would have required about six, 25-foot extension cords. Installing motion sensitive lights in a tree with branches that sway with every breeze was not going to work. The lights would be triggered every time a branch moved. Offering the deer light by which to better see what they were eating was not what I had in mind. I thanked my friend for his advice and dialed the next person on my list.
The next friend I spoke with told me to put nails, bolts and screws in soda cans and string them intermittently on a long cord. Then, I should suspend the can-strewn cord at deer chest-height from the tree branches in a large circle around the garden area. When the deer walked into the garden they would run into the can corded area and the bolts inside the cans would jiggle, making a clanking sound that would scare off the intruders.
It didn’t sound pretty, but it just might work. I raided the house for empty beverage cans, searched the premises for spare nuts and bolts, found some twine, and set out to follow my friend’s instructions. When I was done, my trees had corded can streamers hanging off of them in a vigilant circle. I was right about it not looking pretty. But no matter, it was worth putting up with ugly if it meant saving my babies. It rained that night and all of the following day. Floating nails and nuts don’t make noise, they just sort of soosh around. The only thing the suspended cans were repelling was me, because the trapped water in the cans was serving as an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes. The can thing was a bad idea. Meanwhile, with each passing day, my plants showed signs of new nibbles.
I was back to square one. I called the next person on my phone list. “Call the Cooperative Extension Service,” I was told by my learned friend. “They specialize in every conceivable calamity that might befall the weary gardener. I’m sure they can help you.”
“Gosh, why hadn’t I thought of that? Thank you. I will call them right away.” So, I called the Cooperative Extension Service and asked the kind lady who answered the phone, what, short of a high powered rifle, would be an effective deterrent for the hoofed creatures who were using my garden as a Bambi salad bar. The lady was very sympathetic. She promised to research my problem and get back to me with an answer. About an hour later she called me with advise that was touted as a sure fire way of ridding myself of my four-legged foes. “Hang soap bars from tree branches. The more perfumed the better. The deer will smell the perfumed soap and will be immediately repelled by it. They don’t like unnatural odors.” I thanked her, grabbed my purse, and headed for the nearest shopper’s bulk warehouse.
I bought a case of soap and a lot of twine. I spent the rest of the day tying soap bars to long strands of twine and hanging them from every tree branch within reach in my yard. By the end of the day I had a yard full of swaying soap bars. It was a very strange sight. The dangling bars looked like a pagan offering meant to pacify the ire of the gods of cleanliness.
A couple of days later my lawn service people came to cut the grass. At first, the four men who made up the crew went about their business of cutting the lawn, dodging the hanging soap bars as best they could. A little while later, however, I looked out the back window and saw the four men talking in a huddled circle surrounded by the suspended soap bars. It was a strange and almost eerie sight. The men looked like the trapped victims of some odd pagan ritual trying to plot their escape.
Later on, when one of the men came to the door to collect their payment, I noticed that he was somewhat hesitant and looking at me with suspicion. I’m sure he was concerned about how safe it was to approach me unarmed – just in case I was not just nuts, but also violent. I paid him, offering no explanation about my unusual yard decorations. Sometimes it’s easier to leave bad enough alone. This was one such time.
Over the next couple of weeks the puzzlement of the lawn service people was echoed in the reactions I received from friends who came to visit me. They would look at the soap bars, and then silently look at me expecting an answer to their obvious puzzlement. When no explanation was forthcoming, they would finally give in and blurt out, “OK, what’s with the hanging...are those soap bars?” I was really getting very good at giving, what by now was turning into a stock answer... “I like clean plants.”
I left the soap bars up for a few weeks in the hope that they would render my shade garden less appetizing for my midnight raiders. I inspected the area every morning only to find new hoof prints under the soap bars. Besides looking incredibly stupid, the only thing that the hanging soap accomplished was to give me the cleanest plant stubs in the county. After weeks of effort I knew I had been beaten. I collected the soap bars and stopped tending my demolished shade garden for the year. I would let the deer have their way with my hostas and violets.
The following spring, while raking the previous fall’s leftover leaves, I made an unexpected discovery. There, under the cover of last year’s leaves, the unmistakable sprouts of hosta leaves were popping up from the ground. In disbelief, I carefully uncovered the area where I had planted the violets. There too, little shoots were inching out into the warmth of spring. The damage the deer had caused was only surface deep. The roots of my plants were established and the munching deer had only managed to prune the foliage part of the plants.
Although one year later, my shade garden had turned into a success story after all. The deer didn’t come back into my yard after the fiasco of that first year. It’s not that anything I did had any effect in deterring them from their dining pursuits. They had simply probably found better munchies elsewhere in the neighborhood. But, the hosta-eating deer experience had served its purpose. I had learned a great deal about nature and its resilience.
By Cynthia Nill
