Following is what I have tried that has worked. But I am asking if any of you have any additional hints or methods you have tried that worked. Suggestion of plants that chase them out, or they do not like (daffodils were even eaten last yr).

Rabbits....Early Spring trim my Barberry bush and rose bushes and lay cuttings around the garden. I have seen them hop in and hop out the garden real fast. This has been my best defense,

Groundhog---Went to my local carpet store and asked for the tac strips layed around plants that I found they loved. Worked for a few months until the plant got big and they could avoid walking on the tacs and get the outside growth. I have to get more tac strips. Poured the kitty litter down their holes and covered it up.

Deer.....Purchased 2 different popular Deer repellents, made the homemade repellents found here at GW. A GW poster also suggested laying wire fencing on the ground and they do not like to walk on for fear of hurting their legs, I discovered I can also put down wooden pallets and when they try to walk across their legs go down between the slats and they will go in another direction.

I have a large property that have 8' fencing and deer jump the fencing. So the pallets, and wire on the ground is placed to stop them before the jump. So you see I have determined deer. Short of shooting them I think I may lose the deer war.
Is anyone willing to add to my weapons war on critters for my garden?

My one caution is, if you get the dried product to mix yourself, don't try to mix too much at a time. The nasty stuff floats on top of the cold water and takes forever to incorporate. I put it in a glass jar, put on the lid, then shake, shake, shake.

I have to say, what I had pre-mixed and kept in the glass jar for future use was absolutely putrid smelling when I went to load my sprayer bottle. No wonder it works so well, but it's worth every penny, believe me.

havahart works well on groundhog .. and rabbit ... you just have to figure out what to do with them once you catch them ...

once i got a skunk.. i paid money to have a pro come fetch it .... its illegal to relocate them.. but he was licensed for extermination ... i am sorry.. i dont feel guilty about that with a skunk ...

i hear rabbit tastes just like chicken .... but i dont know about woodchuck.. try this link:

http://www.google.com/search?q=gropundhog+recipes+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&a q=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#hl=en&client=firef ox-a&hs=pE8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=X&ei=Ds8uT66_G4GkgwfzwIz 9Dw&ved=0CBsQvwUoAQ&q=groundhog+recipes&spell=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw. r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=64bab776de794869&biw=1080&bih=952

bet you didnt contemplate eating them.. rotflmbo ....

ken

hudsonriverbug, thank you for the Plantskydd suggestion that was one I did not have on the list.

I don't know about others, but the 'blood red' color was still visible on my plants for days. Maybe because we didn't have a lot of rain at the time. Great thing about Plantskydd is that you don't have to re-apply frequently to keep up the level of protection. It really is worth the expense if you want to 're-train' the critters to get out, and stay out, of your yard!

Now anybody who has a dog knows that if you fill up the dog's bowl with food, then you drop a pizza on the kitchen floor, the food becomes INVISIBLE to the dog. The dog now has a taste for this rarer treat. Even if you take the pizza away, the food is now boring compared to what the dog momentarily thought it was going to get, and will not return to its bowl for along time.

I believe the same can be true for rabbits and other animals. Your garden contains all the "rare" treats they just don't get elsewhere in the wild. So tempt/distract them with something they like even MORE, and not only will they eat that first, but even when it's gone they will spend a lot of time looking for remnants of that tastier thing and take a long time to return to the more relatively-boring garden plants.

It just so happens that crocuses are that tastiest thing a rabbit can possibly find in spring when everything else is dormant - it's hard to even distract them then. So I make sure that there is a sufficient amount of crocus. They nibble a little of this one and that one, and crocus can actually survive that nibbling and regenerate (they just won't survive being cropped to the ground 3 times in a single year). The crocus become boring to the rabbits before they are all dead.

Next, I've begun to plant the crocus within very short groundcovers, like snow-in-summer. They don't like to eat that, or any fuzzy/silver leafed plant, and pretty much avoid anything buried in it. At the very least, it means they take longer to find what they're looking for so end up eating less.

Another thing that rabbits like to eat is the sprouts from millet rejected by birds at the birdfeeder. They also like dandelion shoots quite a bit. Now I won't intentionally plant dandelions, but I'm OK with the millet. I think they'd also enjoy early spring radishes.

I don't have any deer where I live, but maybe a strategy would be to include something deer really like - at a good distance away from your garden. They may be attracted by the sweeter stuff and avoid your garden while they're in the area. I don't think deer ever like to stay in a single area for long because of their instinctive fear of predators so don't worry about turning your garden into a second home for them.

Try dumping a bag of wheat grain on the ground in January and letting it sprout up. (Do deer eat much grass? If not, try a different vegetable, or maybe a few early-breaking shrubs they like that are robust enough to handle some gnawing.) I bet the deer will concentrate there. Plus, they leave a little "fertilizer" behind (as do rabbits) which is very good for the garden.

I don't worry much about the animals liking the garden so much it becomes their home - herbivores instinctively move on after a certain amount of time because of their fear of attracting predators. So if you can get them to spend that time eating something else, you're probably safe.

I have a 4' high fence that the herd (more than 25) never jump because two sides of it are formed by my house. They can't see a way out of the enclosed small space and don't want to be trapped.

We live on 4.5 acres, but decided the deer would jump a perimeter fence, so I have that cottage garden fence to include roses and azaleas.

Outside the fence, I grow only deer resistant plants and I realize your situation is different. About the only time that I get damage is in an extremely cold winter when their food is scarce (I do have a neighbor who feeds them corn year-round). This winter, there was plenty of food so they didn't eat the yucca (yes, that's right) or hollies.

Rabbits are worse than deer, IMHO! They will eat some of my deer resistant plants and cottage garden plants. For those, I use I MUST GARDEN RABBIT REPELLENT and it is 100% effective and lasts a very long time between applications. The company also makes a deer repellent that I've not tried, but the deer don't like this rabbit repellent either as I tested it.

As for voles--those are my worst enemy! Far more damage than deer and rabbits combined. They literally ate the roots off of most of my coneflowers in winter 2010. We changed out some of our flagstone garden paths to include thick gravel and I've not seen a single vole hole/damage this winter. Expensive, but permanent.

Hope this is helpful,
Cameron

My cat caught literally dozens of voles last summer, and I dispatched a few myself, which largely brought them under control. But the cat doesn't hunt in the front garden because it's too close to the road. This is also my most ornamental garden. The voles have wiped out almost all the Echinacea, Liatris, Baptisia, Helianthus, Aster September Ruby, even now working on the Buddleia and Phlox paniculata! The other day it was a very blustery day and I looked out the window only to see half my large and gorgeous Buddleia Black Knight blown across the yard. The voles had eaten away at the roots. That was the last straw!! I've declared war too!

I borrowed and set a mole trap the other day. Not sure if I'm siting it properly though. Poison is not out of the question if it can be used discretely and safely.

I also have vole problems athough not as severe as you have. You might try horticultural castrol. There's quite a bit of information about it on the hosta forum.

Squirejohn, I just did a little search on the Hosta forum and that castor oil mixture sounds interesting. I will have to give this a try, along with perhaps some more traps.

Last year I tried an ammonia/water solution on the hostas to kill the slugs, and was amazed how well it worked. Somebody on GW recommended a 25% solution but that is pretty acrid, so I reduced the solution to 12.5% and that still worked well. It just dissolves the slugs with no apparent damage to the plants whatsover.

I have stayed away from poisons if possible. My neighbors have dogs that occasionally wander into my yard.

Paul