Hi,

I feel you pain. We also live in Deer central (Armonk). I also agree that Japanese Perris work OK and grasses work OK. Barberry is also pretty good.

What I have been doing is there is a development near us, and I think ther eis some sort of houseing association taht looks after the gardening. They have a pretty good selection of plants. So I plan to plant what they have. I.E. if ti is still there it must be deer proof .... famous last words ....

best, Mike.

I have been using a product called Plantskydd which seems to work for me in southern putnam co. We live near a lake and we have herds of deer passing through. This is blood product and it's somewhat disgusting but so far it works to keep the deer and rabbits from decimating my plants. I find that the deer will take a taste of even the deer resistant plants and though they don't do much damage to those you can tell they've been tasted! So I resort to the PlantSkydd and I've been happy with it.

Try Deer Fortess stakes and Liquid Fence spray (used by Mohonk Mountain House.) Deer tend to follow a familiar path. If you change their path to somewhere else, your plants will survive a while. Many, once established are less palatable. Stay vigilant and when the browsing returns, retreat. Some years will be worse than others, but it can be done.

Have been using the Liquid Fence for about 4 years now with much success. I have hydrangeas. If I spray it regularly and mix it strong they don't seem to bother. In the winter they did do some munching but I'd stopped spraying.

We have 2 families of evil bambis that roam our road but so far, knock wood, with regular spraying it's been fine. The stuff stinks at first so be prepared.

I bought the LF compression sprayer -- 2 of them broke. I'll get another at Amway in the fall. Theirs are sturdier.