My mother has finally got a deer barrier high and complete enough to protect her yard (half wooded.) Oh the difference between inside and out of the fence in just a couple years.

I was helping her do some work outside the barrier, and concentrating on not stepping in the poison ivy rather than doing a plant census, but I did notice some grassy stuff, not much. Some garlic mustard, not nearly as much as there had been. Maybe something's changing.

Jewelweed, near the fence. A little Virginia creeper, a few asterish leaves. A few stunted mayapples. Before the deer the woods were carpetted with mayapples and trout lily. There was a lot of blank leaf litter, without much growing. This is a clay soil oak-ash-maple woods in Union county.

Birdgardner, I spray stilt grass with roundup, at a low concentration, in August before it sets seed and that has brought some of it under control. At that point, it's so tall and dense that the roundup doesn't reach whatever other desirable plant life might be under the stilt grass. The places where it has been under some control is where what I assume are carexs and sedges are appearing.

I used to be pro-fencing of large areas until I was convinced by others that such fencing adversely impacts other creatures by cutting off access, creatures that would have a positive impact on a natural woodland, such as fox and box turtle.

I'm trying to plant things in my woodland that the deer ignore for the most part such as galium for a ground cover and coralberry for a mid-level shrub. It's a long slow process, however.

As much as I hate to say this, I've found that hedges of barberry and multiflora rose not only provide shelter for certain birds, such as the catbird, but can also keep deer out. I notice along the roadside that there are no deer trails where there are thickets of such invasives.

However, as much as I hate the deer, I rescued a new-born fawn from certain death the other night after it's mother put it down along the side of our narrow road. It would have been run over had two cars had to pass where it was hiding, so I picked it up and carried into the woods on the same side of the road that it's mother was on.

It was an interesting experience. The original "stay put" drill. The fawn had stepped onto the road side and mom, across the road, signaled it to drop. It sank down in the same position it was standing and never moved a muscle as I went by with the two dogs who were barking and lunging at the mother. I took the dogs home and went back. When I picked the baby up, it still never tensed a muscle, didn't bat an eye. I put it down several feet off the road on the same side as mom. I don't think the thing weighed 5 lbs. Mom was watching and came for the babe as soon as I backed off.

Sum and Substance is every inch of its five foot spread - an ecosystem to itself, breeding mosquitoes and harboring deer.

I've been prodigal with the mint-cayenne spray and the Deer Scram - for this??? At least they haven't eaten the hosta, but they're LIVING there.

I bought a big roll of deer netting on sale, mesh big enough that I don't think birds would get stuck (my nightmare, finding a bird mummy stuck in the fence.) We don't have box turtles here, but I've seen wood frogs, garter snakes, wild turkeys and foxes. Now if the netting could be made with reinforced 7-8" openings along the bottom... the groundhogs would get in but it would just save them a little trouble digging.