At least one of the groundhogs has found a way to get onto our deck and has eaten (decimated) 4 of my hibiscus plants and deflowered others. Horrors!!! Everything was fine as long as they understood "my territory" is mine. The groundhogs have the rest of our 3 acres to graze on grasses, wildflowers, and clover.

For years, I haven't been happy about not being able to plant more than marigolds in the ground off the deck. But I've accepted that. With deer and groundhogs and raccoons and possums and rabbits and squirrels and whatnot around, anything planted outside non climbable 4 foot (minimum) tall fencing will end up as food for the critters. However, our marigolds have always been spared over the years.

The next-door neighbors have habituated the deer; so, deer are now a significant problem. Before those neighbors started to feed the deer about 4 or 5 years ago, we had no real problem. In the past, a deer and her fawns would occasionally pass through our yard, but they usually didn't stop. Now, we're in the path of deer (lots of them) daily rushing to eat what the neighbor puts out. On the way to the neighbors, they will poop and pee and eat whatever they can in our yard. Our other neighbors (behind us) have a nice garden with a tall fence, but the deer have been able to jump it. This year, I've heard a lot of very loud curse words coming from those neighbors whenever they see the deer out and about. I used to grow a 40x40' vegetable garden myself but finally gave up a number of years ago. More than the deer (which weren't habituated back then) or groundhogs (that stayed away from anywhere they knew we went), we had a major mole and racoon problem. Still do. The garden was fenced, but that didn't stop the damage.

The moles have destroyed our lawn and can't be eliminated. Meanwhile, Raccoons are the worst!!! After 3 different, home invasions and producing litters in our attic (followed each time by removal by expensive Critter Control professionals), we still fight to keep them out of our house. Living with wildlife close by is not the easiest thing to do since the wildlife want to take over: from your garden to your house. It's a constant battle as to who wins. At this point, the wildlife here have won in the garden and in the yard.

This leads us to now. I now can only grow potted flowers on our raised and fenced deck - not flowers in the yard. Plus, our only veggies now are potted tomatoes on our other fenced in deck. Otherwise, the deer would have everything. Deer will eat about anything that grows. They are very destructive. They eat even the bark off trees.

Now, to the groundhogs. During the 25 or more years that we've had groundhogs on our property, they have given us no problems. They never came near our deck. We didn't bother them, and they didn't bother us.

I'm not sure how the current groundhogs are now getting onto the deck. We think the new pups may just take the easy route and climb the stairs and then, somehow get over the gate that is only 3 feet tall. Searching the Internet for a solution, I "found" that planting Marigolds (supposedly a groundhog repellant) and putting out Epsom salt (another repellant) should discourage the critters. The bottom step in the photo has a layer of Epsom salt spread across it. We also put some of my potted Marigolds on higher steps. And some potted herbs (also reputed to be a groundhog repellant) on the top step. Now, we'll see what happens. If nothing else, it blocks us from using our using the gate to get out to the yard... At the moment, I'm not a happy camper.