I told myself that putting the tulips at the side of the house instead of in the front garden would keep them safer from the deer, but I may have just told myself that because their colours matched my orange/yellow/red theme in the Sun Garden.
I also could have just tried 25 in the first year instead of 75, but some times you just have to go for it. Maybe next time I try something so risky I will scale back on the size of experiment.
Prints are clearly visible amongst the tulips stubs.
The weight and shape of them clearly indicating (hungry) deer.
What they left behind was actually fairly interesting from a close up perspective.
Even beautiful.
But not as beautiful as the tulip in bloom.
If only I had planted them in the fenced-in back yard they may have survived and I would not be faced with this conundrum: do I rip them out on the assumption the deer will be back each spring and they are not worth saving or do I transplant them to the apparent safety of the back yard knowing they will not look as good in their second year? Any assumption that the deer will not be back next spring is foolish and leaving them in is not an option; their foliage is too distracting once it is passed its best to justify without the normally attendant vibrant splash of spring colour.
In other words they need to pay their way.
What would you do?
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I would mourn for a long while and plant daffodils this fall.
ReplyDeleteDaffs it is. While I may try and rescue these, my days of planting tulips are done.
DeleteMy parents have a fence all around their yard and it doesn't stop the deer. At night we turn off the lights and watch them hop back and forth. Two years ago my mom went out to her tulips and found all the heads were gone. She actually called the police because she thought vandals had ruined her tulips, they were the ones that told her about the deer eating them. This year for the first time in 17 years my tulips were devastated by those darn deer! You could cover them up, but that's a lot of work if you ask me.
ReplyDeleteI agree it is too much work to cover them up, I simply should have know better, LOL.
DeleteI would transplant, but that is a lot of work.
ReplyDeleteI am tempted to at least move some of them, A little work is nothing to be afraid of, eh?
DeleteThe deer eat most of the tulip blooms here and also the iris.... They must be yummy.... Michelle
ReplyDeleteThey nibbled my Iris early on but they are still coming up strong and iot looks like we'll still get all our blooms from them. :)
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