I lost my affection for Bambi long ago. I vaguely remember being appalled that my own friends would go out with guns, stalk and kill deer, and actually eat venison.
Those days are long gone. Long. Gone.
I’m sure you are way ahead of me on the reason: deer in my yard. Deer eating my deer-resistant yews. Deer feasting on my hydrangeas. Deer gobbling up my tulips—the foliage, in fact, before the blooms even emerged. Oh, dear!
Deer hooves kicking the ears off my stone schnauzer. Deer poop in the grass. Deer antlers rubbing the bark from our trees.
Tomatoes. Pansies. Petunias. Gone. Nothing is sacred.
Deer visits are not seasonal. They are 365¼, 24, 7.
But I have a weapon that is effective and not cost-prohibitive. It is, however, a bit work-intensive, for it has to be spread again after a rain: Milorganite. And I have proof.
See here my pathetic tulip remains after a hungry deer chopped off the foliage to the ground. It’s just beginning to come back. 
See below the tulip after it had been surrounded by Milorganite for a few days. The deer did not go away—of course not! But they do NOT like the Milorganite and avoid plants surrounded by it. So my tulips actually bloomed, unhindered.
This tip was given to me by The Garden Coach, Kris Barton, of Fort Thomas, Kentucky. I’ve found it to be very effective and not nearly as expensive as materials advertised for keeping deer away, such as Deer B Gon. The process by which Milorganite is made is impressive as well—true recycling at its finest.
I’ve also found that deer seem not to like yellow flowers. So if we have a particularly rainy summer, you may notice that all the surviving flowers in my yard are yellow!
All the reasons that I resent deer are not their fault. They are simply surviving through their God-given instincts. People have encroached on their land and they have nowhere to go but our yards and gardens. So it goes back to how well we use the resources God gives us. What exactly are we supposed to eat? What are deer supposed to eat?
“Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so.
“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.” (Genesis 1:29-31, NIV)
So we eat seed-bearing plants and fruits and the rest of the animals eat all green plants. Nothing said about protecting flowers for mere human enjoyment.
Hmmm. Something to think about.
As I’m generously spreading my Milorganite.
