Bodyguard

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

-Churchill           

Landscaping in the deer-rich environment of Red Lodge, Montana is nothing short of wartime. Nothing will keep them from eating things that they like (or spitting out things they decide they don't like) except a high fence or a solid wall. At the greenhouse, I put some plants outside next to the barrel, including two coleus I was able to grow from seed. I thought if I surrounded them with things that they really don't like, like rosemary and peppermint, they would not find them. They did. One was chewed down to a nub, and the other was yanked out of its pot and only three inches remained of a plant that was probably nine inches yesterday. These might bounce back, and I still have some other sprouts, but now I know coleus are a plant I cannot have outside unprotected.

I do still have one outside. This is a table on our back patio right next to the house. The coleus that I purchased from Proven Winners Direct is on the right end, behind a bodyguard of mint, and next to two Monarda which are related to mint. But a Monarda that I planted in the ground was sampled by deer, and I had to put a covering over it. The Monarda at the greenhouse, which is at the center of the outside barrel, has not been disturbed. I want to plant the two Monarda next to our shed. I know that they will not like them, but that doesn't prevent them from yanking them out of the ground before they decide they don't like them. Vandals, they are.

Lavendar is another plant that the deer are not supposed to like. I planted one in the back of the house recently, and did not put a little fence around it like I did with several other recent plantings. But I did put a bodyguard of sage in front of it. So far so good.