Do Deer Eat Tulips?

Just like humans enjoy a good treat now and then, deer do as well and this is where your tulip comes in. Tulips are like ice cream for deer- sweet, easy to consume, so if they come across tulip in a garden, they will certainly eat it.
While these animals are pleasing to look at, their penchant for eating tulips poses a problem to gardeners, because the tulips are planted for other purposes than to feed the local deer population.

It has been established that deer eats tulip and gardeners don’t want that. But, simply killing them or wishing for them to stop eating your tulip won’t work.test

How to Protect Your Tulip from Deer

Fencing

A fence that is 8 feet tall will generally keep Deer away from your precious tulips, but fences cost money and they could affect the landscape of your flower garden.

Plant the bulbs deeply

They can’t eat what they can’t see. Plant your tulip bulb deep and cover up well with soil. To answer the question of “how deep is deep enough?”, think along the lines of at least three times the height of the bulb. When you are done, clean up well and remove any evidence of bulb planting so that the smell does not attract deer to the site.

Make use of plant deterrents

Some flower bulbs are deer resistant because when the selective deer comes to graze, it will avoid these plants. You can use these plants as deer-proof to protect your tulip from getting eaten.

Some of these plants include; hyacinth, snowdrops, daffodils, etc. There are certain conditions to growing these plants, so you’ll have to be careful in your selection so that you can get what you want out of growing them.

Spraying with deer deterring scents

There are certain scents that deer find off-putting and if you are to spray your tulip with such scents, they will leave your bulb alone. Some scents you can use to spray your tulip include; hot pepper, fish fertilizer, predator urine, sage and garlic.

Except in cases where they are extremely hungry, deer will not eat your tulip if you spray with these scents.

Scare tactics

You can use a motion sensor device to spray water on deer that comes close to your tulip. If you are using this, you would want to activate it when there are no kids around, or when you wouldn’t accidentally wander into the garden yourself, except you don’t mind being hit with a blast of cold water.
Another scare tactic to use is ultrasonic devices that emit shrill, annoying sounds that will scare the deer off. While this is highly effective, it might not work for long term purposes because if the deer don’t notice any sign of danger even after the loud sound, they eventually get used to it and just go on feeding.

Deer are lovely creatures, but their large brown eyes aren’t enough to make a hardworking gardener give them free range to eat their tulips. The above methods will help solve your deer problem, you just have to carefully select what works for you.