Deer-proof your lawn

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our toll free number eight hundred eight two three eight
two five five. Good morning. I am Ron Wilson, your
personal yard boy, talking about yarding. And you know, one
of the big things that always comes up, always comes
up at a garden talk. We talk about a lot
on our show. That's a major issue pretty much around
the United States. You get out there to get that
landscape planted and it's looking good, and all of a
sudden the deer come through. And you haven't seen deer

(00:23):
in fifty, you know, fifty years, and all of a
sudden they show up in your yard and it becomes
a salad bull and it's a yeah really, and we
all kind of deal with in some level or another. Well,
we're going to talk a little bit about what you
may be able to do to help eliminate that. But
on this I also want to talk today about something
that's affecting deer, that may affect the deer that come

(00:45):
into your yard and garden, and if it does, we
want to know more about it and to help us
out with this. One is our good friend. You've heard
them on our show many many times, chiming in on
great plants that are out there, and of course great
tips as well.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
The company is a A Kendrick and O'Dell Landscaping. Their
website is Kendrickodell dot com and he happens to be
Kevin O'Dell. Good morning. Wow, all your fans are cheering
for you.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'm not sure about that. Uh. I did people know
we're going to be talking about that today, Ry.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
I didn't know how many people were. You know, we're
big fans of Kevin O'Dell. Geez, I'm not.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Sure about that. I'm just a planned guy and a
person who hunts and many other things.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
And that's why that's why you have such an exciting life.
All right, So, first of all, I want to thank
Sarah Cook for hooking this up. That's like your people
conquacting my people, you know, go back and forth, shared share.
Sarah did a very good job, so thank you very
much for doing that. All right, Well, sure you informed
me this past week about a disease that the Ohio

(01:55):
Department Natural Resources are looking for reports if this happens
to be in your particular area. Now we all, I think,
for the most part, as I was saying earlier, deal
with deer of some type passing through or hanging out
in our yards or whatever it may be. And of
course they we'll talk a little bit more about that
a little bit later on as far as you know,
preventing damages if we can. But here's a situation where

(02:18):
if deer come into your yard and are acting really unusual,
and I'm sure you're going to tell us what we're
going to be looking for. This is a disease and
I guess affects deer but not us humans. But I
guess it's getting serious enough that now the the od
n R wants to know where we're seeing this and
and of course with a drought situation, I understand this

(02:39):
makes it even worse. First of all, pronounce what this
disease is, because all I can say is ehday.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Episodic hemorrhage disease.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Episodic hemorrhage is very very commonly known as EHD. That's
going to be your easiest thing to google or anything
that we speak about today.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, I would have. I would have shredded that. I
tried out a million times. There's no way I could
have gotten that one out. So he did a very
good job, thank you very much. So eh, I'm.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Not definitely I'm not really sure of the Bazoudic pronunciation,
but we'll call it that.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
That looks good to me. I think you did a
wonderful job. So EHD and deer first of all, so
that we're not in a panic. It doesn't affect.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Us, no, sir, not at all. And you being you
don't want to consume a deer that is showing signs
of it in typical hunting parlance, you know, you don't
want to see a dead deer, dead deer on the
road that's been hit. Uh, it's just common sense, okay.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
And so if we if something would happen like all right,
so you're a hunter and you're up on your tree
stand and you have no idea whether this deer had EHD,
and so you shoot it and you take it home
and you address it, and you know, you put in
the freezer. Can that affect you by eating that venison?

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Not if you kiell a healthy deer?

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (04:09):
And you can tell it again, as a person who hunts,
you can tell which deer are sick depressed attitude. I
mean you can only see them walking through the woods
that it's like this, dear, Maybe in fact, they have
any questions, just don't don't harvest it. You'll see the
heads down off and you'll see deer around a lot

(04:33):
of water or any kind of water because they what
they do and it affects their respiratory system. You'll spin
them in the shade. You'll find them near creeks, even
if the creek is not running. It's a cooler environment
that they don't that they you know, it makes them
feel better. I've seen deer creek bottoms and that's happening

(04:56):
a lot right now. We had we have one job
site in the eastern side of town, probably eight to
ten acres. We have found six dead deer on there
in the last week. Really they're all near all near
dry creeks.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yes, sir, wow, So how did the deer get the
EHD well.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
It's a just it's an annual infestation. The deer are
infected by a midge, which is basically a kind of fly,
and you can the ead comes from very very hot,
dry summers and that's one reason they will go to

(05:40):
water or a water water area, a water irrigated lawn
that's the case that we've experienced, and woods nearby water.
It's up this year. I mean because we've had that
high dry summer. We've had a lot of rains this spring,
especially in jill Lie, and that seems to bring on

(06:02):
the hatch of you know, their healthy flies basically, and
that seems to bring on the hatch when it gets
hotter and drier. You know, we've had the public reports
of daz and six deer. Now this is just updated
five days ago by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources
twenty and twenty two, fifteen hundred cases, twenty twenty three,

(06:28):
eighteen cases, twenty twenty four, two thousand and twenty one hundred.
Basically two thousand and twenty five seven thousand, four hundred
and eighty six. That's almost a four four times increase
from last year. Very close. Wow, we've got the hot,

(06:48):
we've got the wet, we have the hot, we have
the dry. That's going to increase the activity of the
deer that can transmit it, and then the flies feeding
on that deer can go to another deer, healthy deer,
and they do all the time. They're like any animal

(07:10):
flies following around and then that that midge bite and
will then infect the healthy deer.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
All right, So that was a lot to say, right, there.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
That was. I mean, that's that's crazy stuff there. I mean,
that's really coming on. Talking with Kevin O'Dell on their
websites check it out. It's Kendrick O'Dell dot com. And Kevin,
of course a true plantsman here in our area, great
landscape designer, landscape installer, plantsman, and he's a hunter as well.
Let us know about a disease that you may see
deer having in your backyard called e HD. And it's

(07:44):
something if you do, uh want to know about it.
This state wants to know about it. And this isn't
more than Ohio, right, Oh yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
It's a lot of states, a lot of states, more
in the eastern part of the country. You know, with
the common little deer. Okay, a herd gets big, those
herds move out and expand, which is why we have
them in Ohio such a hard time with them. So

(08:14):
that disease is also spreading by the numbers of deer
in the population of the deer that we have. That
disease correlates to the bigger population of deer kind of
follows it.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Wow, So you know, so with this EHD. So how
all right? So then folks are listening saying, Okay, I
understand where it's out there, et cetera, et cetera. How
would I know? What do I look for when deer
come into my yard that I may suspect they have EHD?
Besides the fact that they drop dead by my water
pond or my water bath or whatever it may be,

(08:49):
what other symptoms would I see?

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Well, according to the odn R website, which is really
really good, how Department and Natural Resources and they have
a you can scroll down in Ohio Department of Natural
Resources EHD. They have a very informal, very good website

(09:13):
on their o d n R e HD and the
symptoms they vary and usually develop after seven days to exposure.
The deer per disoriented and show little or no fear. So,
if you have deer and you've been observing in your garden, yard,

(09:36):
wood space, whatever, if you see them acting funny, and
then you know, if you're seeing them on a regular basis,
like you know eight hundred would you would see, Okay,
this year's acting strange. They might appear feverish. You're going
to see someone you know going to water. If you're

(09:57):
hunting in a very web area, if you have an
irrigated lawn, if you have a small water feature, they're
going to go to that and they're gonna they're going
to appear to you that they're sick. I mean, there's
really no question that these these animals are sick. And
then also you know then your neighbors that they're seeing them,
and the community seeing them and sending out alerts on it.

(10:20):
I just was on the Indian Hill website earlier. And
then they do a great job of reporting and uh,
yeah in Newtown does a really good job. You know,
we see these mostly on the east side of town.
Uh the reports of that's also where Better Godell does

(10:41):
a lot of work. We're around them, and we had
six on the site, like like I said earlier, but
we've also had them scattered through you know, our work
area parks are a good thing on the east side
mostly right now. But you know, it's an easy it
can go anywhere. It's the weather conditions that started.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Sure, talk about Kevin O'Dell about this disease. And again
remember you can't get it doesn't affect you, but we
want to know about the deer if they are in
your area, have these symptoms, and you can go to
no matter what state you're in, you can go here
to just learn more about it. The od n R
a high Department of Natural Resources and get the information

(11:24):
about EHD and learn more about what to look for
in your deer. And if you think you've they've got it,
you need to report it, let them know about it,
and will they do anything about it. They just basically
want to know where you're seeing it.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Where you're seeing it, just for recording it. See if
there's any real strong movement, which is in Ohio. It
shows that. There's a great map on again the Ohio
Department and Natural Resources site. There's a map on shows
you the number of infections in every different county in Ohio.

(12:00):
Acca started pretty much on the southwest side of Ohio,
migrating different areas of no infection, areas of reported infection,
areas with mild and all the way to you know,
a lot of it there. It's a great colored map
of the state of Ohio. YEP.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
So learn more about it, what to look for it.
Go to the od n R a website and you're
looking for general information about eh D affecting deer. We're
gonna take a quick break. We come back we'll talk
to you Kevin and see what he does to help
deer proof. Is there such a thing the landscapes where
there's a lot of deer here in the garden with
Ron Wilson talking to your Ardening at eight hundred eight

(12:44):
two three eight two five five Special guests this morning,
Kevin O'Dell. Their website is Kendrick Odell dot com. Talking
about a little disease. It's affecting a lot of deer
in our area, could be in your state as well.
Learn more about it. Uh, check out our website first
and you can go to state as well. Odn R
the High Department of Natural Resources and it's called EHD.

(13:05):
I'm not about to pronounce the disease. Kevin did a
great job, but I would rip that to shred, so EHD.
Check it out, learn more about it now. You know
there's a lot of folks out there, Kevin that we're saying.
I wish this a disease would spread more and more.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Absolutely to Bron, I believe it's going to I mean,
dead deer can't breathe. We're moving into the breeding season
and it's kind of that sounds like it's going to
kind of overlap with the EHD. These midges from that
caused the EHD are going to die after the first frost.

(13:43):
The colder weather, they're not as active and basically they're
going to die after the first frost, so you're not
going to have transmission from dead midges, So that's cooler.
But then we also have the breeding season coming accident.
Actually it's getting ready to start right now, so you're
overlapping dead image is dead deer greeting season. If the

(14:06):
dose aren't there, they can't be bred. So you're going
to have a decline in the deer population for at
least three to four years, maybe five in some areas
where you don't have many deer. So it is going
to be a blessing, and I've explained that to gardeners. Yes,

(14:27):
some people feel sorry for the deer because they're dying,
but other people are very joyous about that.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
Well they can be. I get it both. I see
both sides there, and I feel bad for them going
through this too. But you know, again, reducing populations a
little bit is a real plus as well. Let me
ask you a question here. If I go into a break,
because we've got about a minute and a half to
go before we go to the break here, because I
spent too much time talking in the first break there,
can you hang on and when we come back, give

(14:56):
us one more segment about what you do to to
do a more dear proof landscape.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Certainly, but I'm gonna say leading into that there is
no dear proof exist.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Well, that's that you.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Can cut down on them and cut down on the
use of the use more than resiste That's it.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
And I think that's my whole lead into this whole
thing before as a little tease, is that are there
really dear proof landscapes? No? Kevin and I both agree
on that. Are there deerproof proof plants out there? I
think Kevin and I both agree on this one too.
Probably not low brows, maybe one thing, but actual deer
proof not many on that list anymore. So let's take

(15:39):
a quick break, all right, and we'll come back, and
we're gonna get putt Kevin on the hold again. Go
to their website check it out. It's a good website
Kendrick Oodell dot com and learn about more about his
his company there. They do a great job of a
well known landscaped division or firm in art particular area,
but he does a lot of landscaping in areas that

(15:59):
are heavily populated with deer, like Indian Hill and Madeer
and Montgomery places like that, heavily populated with deer. So
how do you deal with that? You know, we've got
the repellents, who've got low brows plants. You get to
see the list of deer resistant plants, which I don't
go for anymore. I say low's low brows are rarely damaged.
But Kevin's got some great insights on this as well.

(16:22):
So we'll take a break here at the at the
bottom of the hour, and Kevin's gonna go on hold
for us, So State stay with us, uh, because I
think he's got some good tips to share with us
as far as this deer thing. And again, learn more
about this disease. Go to the od n r's website,
look up EHD learn more about it. If you're deer
in your area seem to be exhibiting this disease, let

(16:43):
them know about they want to know. Eight hundred eight
two three eight two five five. That's our number here
in the Garden with Ron Wilson. Welcome back here in
the Garden with Ron Wilson's special guest this morning, Kevin O'Dell.
He's a true plasman in our area landscape designer does
an excellent job talking about EHD, a little disease that
we're seeing the deer in our area in other states

(17:04):
as well, and what to look for for that. But
the next question is, all right, so you do a
lot of landscaping, Kevin, and heavily deer populated areas such
as Indian Hill and the surroundings. But you know a
lot of work in situations like that, how do you
approach doing a new landscaping, renovating a landscape whatever may be,

(17:25):
when you know, darn well there are deer lurking everywhere
that can't wait to try out your new landscape design.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Ron, there's a few things you can try, the most
effective one and again, as a person who hunts, we're permitted.
Hunting is a great advantaged disadvantage to the deer because
they can be hunted. If the deer aren't there, they
can't breathe and you know, make a bigger hurt. Right

(17:55):
That's you know, that's my little pitch for allowing hunting.
You know, most of the hunts in those areas are
archery only. Most of the time you're in a tree stand,
your arrows are going down. There's a lot of places now,
communities and things that are allowing deer hunting in them.
Always buy our tree the places you can do do

(18:19):
this at or a lot of the parks, a lot
of the community areas. Indian Hill has a great hunting program.
It's all by bow. You have to take a task,
be serified, but they know where you're going to be hunting.
But they will also give you permission to hunt on
private land. Well you can get permission hunt on privately

(18:43):
and all the time, but the police and we'll find
you up an area that you can hunt with the
land owners agreement. They call the police. Sean Purdue as
an officer there who was in charge of that program.
They're a great guy. He's going to find a place
for you to hunt. I mean there's private homes that

(19:03):
don't get asked to hunt on. But they know these
people and they will work out a deal where you've
been hunt sure. The other thing you know, it's on
a oh, it has to be maintained. It's a deer fencing.
It's a plastic fencing. We definitely recommend the six foot
high fencing of a plastic type and then that way

(19:27):
the deer can't get in. It will have to be maintaining,
especially in order sits from a limb coming down. Deer
will crawl underneath it, so you have to make sure
there's no gaps in the deer fencing. When you're crossing
a low spots, they will crawl or they will jump
steve slopes. They're not going to jump over because they
don't feel safe jumping from a lower area to a

(19:49):
higher area, the or vice versa. It's a good deterrent
for them. With the fencing. We use a lot of
sprace for the deer. I think, well, let's go back
a little bit. I think there's plants that you can
plant that are not deerproof, but deer resistant. There's a
great site on the Ohio website. Again you had to

(20:14):
go to Ohio and the navigate through it, but it
tells you some great information about the deer resistant plants
and Rutgers University. It's wreckers lm dot com. They have
a very good website. In fact, I think it's a
little more more correct than the more exclusive than the

(20:37):
Ohio or the Cornell University. Again, that's ers. Yeah, we
use university.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
We use the Rutger one all the time. I mean that,
you know. And again they've addressed that because their categories
are rarely damaged, it starts out at rarely damaged to
load a moderate to extreme damage rather, you know, and
again they talk about the fact that no plants deer
proof and deer resistant. You know, there are still plants
out there that deer will avoid, but they have those

(21:06):
categories which I think are outstanding.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yes, sir, they are well, you know, deer and there's
certain conditions will eat anything. Yeah, they have to eat
to survive or a room and an animal, I mean,
they have to ingest so much food per day. And
the tests have shown that a healthy adult animal needs
to eat seven to nine pounds of foliage a day,

(21:30):
which is a lot of lettuce, you know, a lot
of foliage. So you know they're going to eat, they eat,
you know, temperatures, they have to eat every day of
the year or they're going to die and they're gonna
starve to death. Eventually be slower growing animals to reproductive

(21:52):
cycle will be lower if they aren't healthy. Deer aren't
there we have deer in our backyard I live and
should it and very small lot, little little bit of
a hedging in the back connects a lot of homes
and that we have a deer here. You can tell
that the dough she has a scar on her side.

(22:12):
She's had two fawns, three fawns and two fawns this year.
That's an explosive deer, you know. And that's that's in
the residential area. So again I think defencing where it's
applicable in small areas, maybe where you like a collection

(22:33):
of plants that costas. For instance, we try to keep
the the deer resistant plants in a smaller area so
we can't concentrate the sprays, the treatment, even the fencing.
Sometimes if you want to plant a hoste garden, you
definitely have to do something. So we start out with

(22:56):
the fencing is the best, and then you go into
the sprays.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
Now when you're when you're when you're doing that, you know,
and of course obviously you're looking at low brows or
or you know, what are could you know, tip should
be deer resistant type plants. Obviously there are other plants
that folks want to use. So you know, we say, okay, well,
you know they could they could browse on this, So
we're going to treat with some kind of repellent to
try to keep them moving on. When you're using repellents

(23:23):
in the landscape, do you do a combination of like
do you go out to the edge of the property
as well as within the property to try to keep
them moving on first of all, and then trying to
treat up closer to where these uh more high brows
plants would be. And how often do you do that?

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Uh here ectally? You know, if the rains will wash
some of this soft. So you're really talking if you
want to keep intense control every two weeks you get
three days of rain, you better do it right after
it stops raining at the folding strives well so it
can absorb its. Like one thing about the deer control,

(24:03):
is there an animal that will pattern again? They have
to eat so much foliage a day. There we use
deer scram which is a dry application. The one we're
using now is deer stopper. The other one we'll use.

(24:25):
I don't know that. Uh that'sinitely this is not my
I don't.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
Know everything about this, and I will admit that the
deer stripper. That's what our our Garden Tear division really
likes using. And then the liquid fence.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Is another one, and you want to rotate those. You know,
if people also hang garlic, there's a little garbic clips
you can buy. There's uh, you know, put the old
human hair in a mesh bag and hang it in
a bar of Irish spring soap is going to deter him.
But again it's it's the deer population and the area,

(25:03):
and it's also they're going to get used to everything sooner.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
Or later, so you keep changing it up so they
don't get used to what you're doing out there. I mean,
as a matter of fact, if you checked it with
a lot of these manufacturers of deer repellents, they'll all
te they guarantee to work, but they all tell you
is to mix it up, you know, don't always you know,
if you use liquid fence all the time, they get
they can kind of get used to that. So you know,
deer scram then you mixed up with a little liquid

(25:29):
fence and a little deer stopper repels all whatever, and
you kind of keep, you know, mixing it up so
they have different smells. I think I have found that
that you probably have to be to be more effective
than just stick with one particular type.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yes, are always always switching them up. And you know,
some of them, like the deer stopper does not have
much of the odor. The liquid fences no odor, and
then the scram has an odor. The other one is
bob X. Yep, the odor is not good, I'll put

(26:07):
it that way. But again mixing it up certain areas
up close personal with your home, your living space in
that you didn't want to go with one that has
a less odor to it naturally. And then out in
the you know, I call it the back forty. You
have plants back there that you know, maybe you can
take a little bit more great. And yeah, that rotext

(26:29):
is it is a a product is called. And then
rosemary oil is also something that will I think the
deer stripper contains rosemary.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah, as a matter of fact, so small. I just
saw deer scraam, and I know Dave Cutterback who developed
deer scram, has now a liquid deer scram that should
be available for everybody next year twenty twenty six. And
it's got rosemary in it. I think it's got cinnamon garlic,
a couple other things as well. So it's a it's
a different formula and like the original deer the granular

(27:02):
deer scram, but it's two different types, and of course
then that's great because you can alternate them back and forth.
So yeah, Rosemary seems to always fall into that those
deer repellent categories. They don't don't like that one, and
then sometimes I don't like that one either. All right,
Kevin O'Dell. Always great information. We appreciate it. We always
appreciate when you call in and share information about plants

(27:23):
as well. We love your knowledge. You do a great
job and appreciate you spending time with us this morning.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
I appreciate the time we're on. Again, I'm not the
expert on all this. There's a you know, go to
a rector site or the Ohio State Ohio Department of
Natural Resource. They're great sources and I think you all
would enjoy those and learn something from them like I did.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
There you go, Kevin O'Dell again. The website is Kendrick
O'Dell dot com. Have a great weekend, sir, Thank you,
all right, take care Kevin O'Dell and we'll take a
quick break we come back, phone lines are open for
you eight hundred eight two three eight two five five
something that's worked for you As a dear repellent stuff.
I tell you it's tough, and there's a bunch of
them out there. Matter of fact, giving an update on

(28:10):
some of as we come back, and taking your calls
at eight hundred eight two three eight two fivey five
Here in the Garden with Ron Wilson,