leads a herd of 6 young females
and they regularly explore our gardens, coming within feet of the house. We have always loved watching them delicately picking their way through the buildings, grazing the shrubs and lawns, on guard at all times and ready to flee at any noise.
Unfortunately their love of young tender shoots has cause a few issues.
When planting all of our young trees, we were conscious that we had to protect them from voles and rabbits, so we surrounded them by tree guards
Unfortunately these guards were no match for our hungry deer and many of the leading shoots were torn off the young saplings.
So some replacement saplings were ordered, with some special deer-proof tree guards 4 foot high - apparently the maximum height that a roe deer will graze, and some chestnut stakes.
The fine-holed netting is very stiff and stands four square, when folded and staked with a chestnut stake and a cane support
Only 85 trees needed to be re-netted, and about a third of the saplings needed to be replaced!
On a positive note, the farmer was due to cut the fields and bale the hay, so the taller chestnut stakes made it much easier for him to see the new saplings, and we managed to avoid any casualties.
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