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| Rosa 'Kathleen' and tired foliage of culinary Sage (Salvia officinalis) with Moon Snail from Indian Cove. Mideke hand thrown porcelain pots. On Shaw Island this day of twenty September 2016. |
"A Swedish correspondent, Erik Malm, who read my note on rabbits in the garden, has sent me his recipe for controlling deer, who started making sorties into his garden from the nearby forest, but grew bolder and bolder until they 'are practically born in the garden.' Pretty though they are, they are too fond of flowers as fodder (rosebuds are a special favorite) to make ideal garden pets.
Mr. Malm noticed that they never touched plants with aromatic leaves. So he experimented with a decoction of common sage in water, boiled for 15 minutes, which he put in a spray bottle and sprayed over the plants that deer preferred.
It worked, he says, like a charm. He was soon able to abandon drenching whole beds with his sage-water and just gave a daily squirt or two here and there. The deer, it seems, have become like Ferdinand the bull: admirers, instead of consumers, of flowers."
Above words by Internationally known writer Hugh Johnson. Hugh Johnson on Gardening. London. The Royal Horticulture Society. 1993. Gatehouse Library.
Editor's note: Deer are thick on Shaw Island and don't mind eating botanicals that appear on several "deer resistant" lists. This cooked brew of sage leaves has helped me discourage deer browsing on a foliage plant in my driveway wild garden. A good reason to plant more sage.
