Repels Deer. Dogs, not so much.

My first big landscaping project at our new house this fall was this garden. I call it the Big Rock Garden. The plants were all very carefully selected with the help of two staff members at the nursery for their minimal maintenance requirements and "deer resistant" qualities.

Footprints

The fact is that hungry deer will browse on pretty much any sort of plant, deer resistant or not. So far they've cropped the blossoms off almost all the fall-flowering plants and have nibbled down the stems of a couple others. The heather seems untouched. If the other plants don't make it I might go for the all-heather look.

The garden also has footprints from at least two dogs, one with very large feet. I suspect the Saint Bernard puppy from up the hill.

I filled in the footprint holes with soil and then went back to the nursery yesterday to buy some extremely disgusting stuff called Plantskydd to spray on the plants. This is supposed to reliably repel all deer, elk, moose, bunnies, etc., etc. I doubt that it will help with the local dogs. It's made of blood.