Deervssteve - some of the roses you are rescuing from the deer will get very large if allowed to - have you thought of getting them to climb up trees, or some sort of structure? The deer in my garden do not graze much above 3-4 feet off the ground, and they definitely do not climb trees. That is why I have so many climbers in my garden. I agree that caging the bottom part is a good idea, but if you can manage to get some climbing canes going way UP, you might find that plants such as BB and DdB (I don't know who RDV is) will grow up 10 - 15 feet high, and happily live draped out of trees or on structures. If they were mine, I would spray the new climbing canes that are emerging with that rotten egg deer stuff until they get tall enough and hardened enough for the deer to leave them alone. You are lucky to have such big roses coming up, and in your zone 9 they ought to be able to get large enough and tall enough to have 2/3rds of the bush above deer height eventually. (Then the deer will have to buy ladders.).

Jackie

jacqueline3: My cages in my flat garden are 4 feet tall and I agree that is tall enough for the deer. Based on previous browsing the limit is 3 1/2 feet. On the slope the deer can get to the plants on the high side.The cane I pictured was 4 1/2 feet and I thought the deer couldn't get it, but they did because from the high side of the slope it was a lot less. I have five mature climbers that the deer get a little from the bottom, but leave most alone. RDV (reine des violettes) never got very big because the deer kept chewing it down. I have a Portland from Glendora that was eaten regularly but got established and was about 7 feet tall. The deer left the top half alone. I pruned it way back because it was unsightly. The deer went after it and now it is caged with about two feet above the cage. The cage is four feet in diameter and PFG has already outgrown it. I can't give it a larger cage because it is against the driveway. I'll prune it to fit. My plan for RDV is to confine it two four feet in diameter and stake the canes to make It tall and narrow. It's a year or so away from getting that tall. The deer will get some of DDB but will probably leave the inner growth alone.

The deer repellant you mentioned is ineffective. I have used It extensively and it doesn't work with my deer.

Steve............

I added a flange of about 12" .. I think that is the right word ... at the top of my deer fence facing away from the rose that forces the deer to kind of stand back from the deer fencing so that they can't reach over and nibble. For reasons I don't know, they have never pushed against it even tho' it is not that strong and they could easily bend it and reach the rose.

Jackie is right in that the roses you have mentioned are going to outgrow their deer cages. You can manage some of that by pruning to an inside eye and providing climbing support inside the deer cage, but the flange seems to work best.

In the next three posts, I'll post some photos of how I had changed the deer fencing around 'Linda Campbell'. (I didn't need a flange for this rose.) .. and you can see how I had to change the deer fencing. Until I made the cage larger, the deer were nibbling off anything that grew through the fence and now the rose has enough room to grow as large as it wants to grow.

I have roses planted by the previous owner in a tier that I have caged in front of the house. The deer just walk back and forth trying to get to the roses because they can't seem to figure out how to reach over the flange. I cut "gates" in the fencing kept closed by small bunge cords, so I can open it and get inside and work on the roses.

I need to open a photo sharing account to be able to put all of the photos in one thread, but, for now, this will have to do.

This was my first deer cage for LC

A closer look at LC before the rose out grew it's cage:

LC in its new cage. There are no blooms because at the time this photo was taken, I was disbudding the roses to keep rose curculios from breeding in the Garden.

Smiles,
Lyn

PS... I plan to paint the t-posts so that they blend in a lot better

roseblush1:

I came up with the same idea. I cut a 12" piece of the bottom of the high side to make I level. When I noticed that the high side wasn't tall enough, I added the piece I removed to the high side to the top so the height would be the same.

Steve.........

I really don't care if the height is the same. I'd rather have the deer not eat my roses ... lol. I think I am more greedy than the dang deer.

I have a lot of wire, so if I were you, I'd add a flange wherever the deer were reaching over my fence. I love watching the deer walking back and forth trying to figure out "why" they cannot reach over the fence. By bending it outward from the deer fence away from the rose, it forces them to stand back about a foot.

My lawn is high enough so that the deer can stand on it and reach over to the roses. When I added the flange, they have not had a nibble. The difference in height just isn't noticeable when the roses are healthy and in bloom. All I see are healthy plants and beautiful blooms.

Smiles,

Lyn

The height isn't the same. The high end is higher to account for the slope.

forgot that looks similar to Madam Isaac
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Pompon blanc parfait
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Red wand climbing an oak tree
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