Ann and Randy Sherard live near Redwood Elementary School, surrounded by acres of undeveloped land in a house she designed for her parents’ use.

Since the Sherards moved in several years ago, they have added shrubs and flowerbeds, but she remains challenged by wildlife wandering through and nibbling on or destroying their shrubs and plants.

Deer are the main offenders but rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, armadillos and raccoons have also assaulted the fruits of her labor. Hence, Ann Sherard has spent five or six years experimenting with plantings to find ways to cope. It’s made her choosy.

Ornamental grasses and herbs have proved to be some of the most tolerant to wildlife. Pampas, muhly, miscanthus and purple fountain grass have been worked into beds throughout her landscape and she plans to expand her use of grasses in the future. So many easy-to-grow varieties provide interesting shapes and textures all year.

A large raised island bed, visible from the sunroom they added, is stocked with hardy deer-tolerant plants. Rich in organic matter, it boasts a chaste tree; hardy ginger; lantanas Sonrise, Sonset and New Gold; salvias Mystic Spires and Indigo Spires and African basil, agastache, hyssop, rosemary, cat mint, society garlic and Russian sage.  Much of the foliage in this bed dies back during the winter months.  Sherard hangs bright bottles on limb stubs of the chaste tree where it was cut back due to winter damage and creates her own version of a bottle tree to brighten the bed when flowers are not around.  She added a product sold as Preen to the soil before planting to inhibit seeds from sprouting and lots of mulch so the area is tidy year-round.

Other deer and wildlife-tolerant ornamentals and shrubs she has used successfully include daffodils, which are highly poisonous, dusty miller, salvia greggii Hot Lips,  angelonia, evolvulus Blue Daze, nandina, hollies Carissa and Burford, boxwood, dwarf yaupon, sweet olive, juniper, eleagnus, wax myrtle, azaleas, loropetalum, pineapple guava, spirea and mahonia. Many of these shrubs have prickly textures, which the deer find offensive.

Other techniques that work include cages and repellents. Five-foot wire cages surround the trunks of young trees, crepe myrtles and Nellie Stevens hollies.  Deer like to rub up against small trees and can literally scrape off the bark or chew them back so severely they never recuperate.  Repellents that she can recommend are Deer Fence and Plantskydd. She also has had luck with cayenne pepper sprinkled on wet foliage. It works to keep away a variety of wildlife.

Sherard also has a small, enclosed garden where she grows plants most often bothered by critters. This is where she grows hostas, begonias, impatiens, dwarf ruella,  Blue Pea Vine, ferns, Purple Heart, dianthus and pansies during the winter months. A wooden arbor attached to the house extends across the length of the small garden and supports a cross vine with orange blooms where hummingbirds congregate. Sherard has two of the largest feeders I have ever seen, and the hummers that hover consume close to 200 ounces of sugar water daily.

Deer are becoming a real problem in many communities nationwide as they seek new sources for tender lush vegetation around home-sites in urban and suburban areas. Older forests are not producing enough for their expanding numbers, estimated to be more than 30 million in 2005, up from less than half a million in the 1930s. Deer reproduce rapidly. A doe matures in 2 ½ years, often producing 20 or more offspring over her life span. A Spring 2008 Delta Wildlife Magazine article by Branson Srickland and Steve Demaris, MSU and Lann Wilf at the Mississippi  Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks explains the importance of doe harvesting in our state to help control their expanding population.

Hunters alone are not the answer to the deer problem.

Gardeners have to try to out-smart them in areas where they pose a problem.

“I never say never,” Sherard said. She has researched and found what experts say about what deer and small wildlife will and will not touch, but they have eaten “resistant” plants and trees.

Her gardening efforts are purely trial-and-error, but she has found ways to develop an enjoyable landscape they can enjoy in harmony with nature.

Miriam Jabour, a Master Gardener and master flower show judge, has been active with the Vicksburg Council of Garden Clubs for more than 20 years. Write to her at 1114 Windy Lake Drive, Vicksburg, MS 39183.