Deer fence update

First of all, Happy New Year to you all! It's hard to believe we're already into another new year, isn't it? Let's all hope it's a great year for gardening.

Second, in the interests of full disclosure, I have to tell you that ever since I wrote my last post about how great our deer fence has been working, the local deer have really been putting it to the test. Little stinkers! I didn't even realize that they follow my blog but they apparently didn't like it when I said "nyah, nyah!" and are determined to embarrass me.

Our deer fence surrounds our front orchard, our water garden room, the veggie garden and our backyard. However, there are a couple of areas that we didn't think we'd need to protect. As our luck would have it, the deer have found them. *Sigh*

There is an area between our front and back yards where there are two hedges: in the front is a hedge of Koreanspice Viburnums and in the back, there's a hedge of arbor vitaes. The hedges are on either side of our 4-foot-tall field fence and are growing very closely to one another. We didn't think any large critter would even try to get through there.

Unfortunately, the deer discovered that spot and somehow managed to jump through the hedges into our backyard two nights ago. So it looks like we'll be putting deer fence above that part of the field fence in the spring.

They also located another "chink" in our armor in the backyard that will need deer fencing added to it as well. While this is really frustrating for us, it does underscore how adaptable deer are and, if they're hungry enough, they'll take advantage of any weak points in the fencing that is supposed to keep them out.