How to keep deer from eating your flowers — Philip’s student essay

How To Keep Deer From Eating Your Flowers

My mother loves her flowers. As soon as every fall season starts, I hear “Wanna come get some mums (Chrysanthemum) with me?” and every spring season “Gotta water the rose bushes!”. Back when I was a young chap, about 9-10 years of age, I used to love hearing this because to me, it meant money for Pokemon cards, for she used to pay me to water the flowers. $2 a day. 

One pack of Pokemon cards a day. Some other things came with this “job” as well, including replacing the mulch around the flowers every once in a while, covering them with tarp when it snowed, and keeping them safe. Keeping them safe by keeping the bad insects and deer away. Man, when I tell you for some reason deer love their roses, I sure mean it. I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with deer

While I didn’t have too many ideas regarding keeping deer away, I did somewhat of a good job. One way I did it was physically scaring them away if I saw them anywhere near my precious roses. Although this isn’t too effective because I’m not at home all the time and am most certainly not staring at the bushes like a tiger hunting his prey. Now that I’m thinking about it though, there are other ways of physically protecting your flowers. 

Sensors attached to cameras can work very well. If you have a sensor that turns on a camera when the deer or other animals walk by, you can hop up off the couch and save the day, or if you’re even lazier, you can install a microphone and yell at them through that!

Another good way of keeping them away is repellents. If I had known there was such a thing as a deer repellant spray back then, surely I would have saved up my hard-earned $2 and bought me a bottle. Not only does specific repellent work, but other scents, too. I read an article that says bars of soap can do the same thing of throwing their sense of smell off. Perfumes, cologne, and other smelly items work too.

Deer are beautiful creatures, but some can be tremendously annoying. Like my mom, many people love their flowers, and all of them want to keep their gardens safe. These solutions to keep deer away from your flowers are proven to work, so use this knowledge to do so, or keep it in the file cabinet in your mind for a later use.

Although this topic does not directly relate to my career path, it was an interesting topic to research and write about. I had fun doing so, and actually learned a lot; and of course, I relayed the new-found information to my mother. She laughed and thanked me, and I’m pretty sure this spring she’ll be using these techniques. This scholarship will really help me pursue my dreams and succeed in college. I thank you for the opportunity and remember, keep those deer away from your pretty roses!

Author: Philip Staley

University of Missouri - Columbia

Student Scholarships

Every year Thrive Pest Control hosts an essay contest and the reward is a 1-year scholarship at a 4-year university in the United States. This blog post is one of those scholarships.