Anti-Bambi

  I am not a Bambi lover. Oh sure, I’ve watched the movie and while I don’t exactly root for the hunter, I have found that in Real Life, I prefer my deer with fried potatoes; long eyelashes and talking friends just don’t do it for me. But, when it comes to deer in my backyard, I’m more of a live and let live kind of a gal. Deer only nibble.

Elk are different. Elk are demon spawn, the juvenile delinquents of the animal kingdom. Elk are not interested in just eating your garden, a nibble here, a nibble there; elk love to tear things up by the roots and toss them, uneaten, all around your yard. It’s as if they were lunatic garden designers on some reality television show in a former life: ”I HATE THE PANSIES IN THE FRONT ROW” and then toss all the pansies into your grass.

  Elk trample and smash more than they eat, and they eat a lot. Years ago, when I was optimistic enough to think I could have a vegetable garden without a twelve foot, razor wire topped fence complete with guard towers, I would find my pumpkins busted open, missing a bite here, and a bite there. Fur covered juvenile delinquents, I swear it.

 
These days I don’t have that problem because I don’t have a veggie garden. The cost of razor wire was prohibitive, to say the least. I do, however, have flowers. Everywhere. Beautiful flower gardens that bless the bees and the butterflies—also the slugs, but that’s a different story—tall delphiniums in every shade of blue and lavender, phlox in purple and white, fragrant Stargazer lilies. Until the elk come through, leaving a Katrina-like disaster (minus the Super Dome part) in their wake.

Next week: Sue Gets Even.

Repelling Pesky Elk

Repelling Pesky Elk 

By Sue Sume The Highway Shopper

Local elk and deer populations have become so accustomed to human behavior that to chase them, screaming and brandishing a small sledgehammer while wearing only a bath towel, no longer has the desired affect. The animals are not frightened into fleeing--but your neighbors might be. 

He is looking RIGHT AT ME as he munches!

A better method is to apply the product PlantSkydd, available from DeGoede’s and elsewhere. PlantSkydd is made of animal blood (one can only hope it was from the actual elk that ate all of my lilies) so while wet it stinks, and it does stain the plants, but it will stay on plants through quite a bit of rain, including in winter. Regular three-month applications are enough to keep elk from eating your plants over the winter, but summertime applications can be trickier. When plants are sprayed during budding time, the elk won’t eat the sprayed buds, but as new buds coming on, elk will carefully nibble any unsprayed buds. New growth is at risk.      

Another product found to work well is Liquid Fence, sold at Packwood ACE Hardware and elsewhere. One look at the beautiful planters in front of Four U Realty will attest to the effectiveness of this product. Apply to dry plants. I recommend making sure all of your windows are closed before applying it to plants near your house.  Trust me on this.

Both products are best used in combination with the Scarecrow automatic motion-sensing sprinklers. That way elk have no time to stand around your garden, sniffing out the random  petunia your stinky spray might have missed. Using last year’s batteries in your Scarecrow is not advisable as elk are known to sense any weakness in your defense system and will wait just out of range until the battery dies.