Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Repellex – a later version
Oh yes, those big brown eyes are beautiful… till that deer moseys over to your gardens to start munching!
As gardeners we’ve used loud noises, Irish Spring soap, pepper spray and a variety of other so-called surefire ways to keep the deer at a distance without consistent results.
There’s also another critter that creates chaos for young trees in particular, it’s the lowly mouse and it’s cousin the vole. Mice like to nestle up to young trees and shrubs in winter and feed on a feast of bark and roots. I told you about using a white spiral tree guard, as you can see in the first photo. It works well and keeps fruit trees from winter damage. However, issues with moles and gophers? There’s another way
University of Minnesota, Duluth’s, Natural Resources Research Institute introduced the repellent to the public in 2010. It works in a completely different way and doesn’t require altering the aesthetics of your landscape. Repellex works from INSIDE the plant. Notice the squirrel!?! I’d love to get rid of them! They plant black walnuts all over my landscape!!
It’s delivered to your plant through a pill that you insert at the root system. When watered with your plant, the pill delivers a concentrate of hot pepper called capsicum to the roots which take it up into the rest of your plant making it inedible for critters from deer to mice and in between.
The product was approved by the Environmental Protection Agency and has been available for several years. They’ve created a granular form as well and are also using it to repel other critters, including your own pets, without any side effects.
Here’s the caveat, you HAVE to allow TIME for the plant to take up the Repellex into their stems. So, for about the first 30 days, you still need to find another way to protect your plants to be on the safe side.