My Beautiful Wife is a rose fanatic. She puts in A LOT of time (and money, I might add) into wonderful roses, as well as other plants. Including some that I appreciate because they are good to eat.

Enter the embodiment of evil! Beautiful evil, but evil, the enemy, no less.

We live well within Indianapolis, next to a tiny woods (perhaps five acres), and near what I'll call a river corridor, up along which deer come and settle in the little woods, whence they calmly, deliberately stalk the yards in the neighborhood in search of provender so thoughtfully put out by those humans. In particular, right now we have a family of four white-tailed deer which raid the gardens in the neighborhood. And they seem to have a particular liking for my B.W.'s roses, or at least some of the varieties, along with other flowers and vegetables.

When they first started showing up, say a year and a half ago, they were very shy, and were quickly alarmed at any sign of human movement, instantly vanishing into the woods with a flick of a white tail. But they've learned, I guess, that no one is actually allowed to harm them, so if they are observed, and even approached, they will calmly and unhurriedly turn and enter cover. No panic, no hurry.

At first they were a delight (because unusual, and "so cute") and a treat to see, but now my B.W. (and I gather, all the neighbors) tears her hair, trying to maintain a garden, decorative or nutritional, in the face of the hungry intruders.

Short of eight-foot fences, which we can't afford, what can we do? I understand there are plant species which deer don't like to eat, and some that actually repel them.

But does anyone have any actual experience with such plants, or with commercial repellents which I gather exist?

Effectiveness? Cost? Persistence of effect?

Dave Oesterreich