One of the nice things about having a blanket of snow on the ground is that I can see which critters have been wandering through our yard, particularly at night. As I've mentioned in previous posts, my husband Bill and I put up some deer fencing last year in an effort to keep them out of our small orchard and garden.
I'm happy to report that after examining animal tracks in the snow this afternoon, it looks like we are succeeding.
As you can see in the foreground of this photo, it looks like Grand Central Station in our front and side yards. Apparently, plenty of deer thought they could take a shortcut through our backyard and perhaps find some goodies to nibble on. (remember that you can click on the photo to view a larger image)
But they did a U-turn when they got to the fencing that surrounds our orchard, the water garden room and the side gate that leads to the veggie garden, perennial beds and bird feeders (one of their favorite haunts in previous winters).
We initially had 47"-high field fence surrounding these areas but added 3-1/2 feet of black plastic-coated deer fencing from Wilbur-Ellis last spring to make the fences about 7-1/2 feet tall. Bill added height to the pre-existing metal fenceposts by attaching rebar rods to each post.
We used black electrical "zip-ties" to connect the field fence with the deer fencing so it's quite secure. While this arrangement is perhaps not as attractive as I'd like, aesthetics have become less important to me than dealing with deer in the garden!
To read a previous post about what we did to keep deer from jumping through the arbor gates, read this recent post.
