Deer repellant stakes

Listen to this radio show (MP3 download) or read below.

Radio interview source: Stewart Clark, director of research and development, Senoret Chemical

You can put up all the signs you want telling deer to keep out. But since they can't read, they don't care. They love to forage in bedding plants and shrubs and there is no magic potion to keep them away.

But, people are working on it. Stewart Clark is the director of development and research for a company that makes a product called Deer Fortress. They're garden stakes filled with dried pig blood. We humans can't smell it, but the deer can. And they don't like it.

"It's in a container that's protected from the water, from rain," Clark says. "And so you place it near plants that you don't want deer to eat. When they come up they sense that odor which is given off by that dried blood, and then it institutes their fear response and they run away."

To protect shrubs, hang the stakes from the branches. Dangle them from tall garden stakes to prevent munching on plants such as blooming hosta. And if the stakes are close enough to the ground, the rabbits may not like the smell around your plants either, and they'll stay away, too.