Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Lilly Pad Sabateur

After my neighborhood retention pond failed due to the standpipe essentially collapsing, I rescued some Lilly Pad corms and have been keeping them in my garage in bins of water in the early spring.

When things warmed up more, I moved the bins outside into my driveway, and the all the corms sprouted pads. Truly, it was a beautiful thing, and I was just waiting for flowers to bloom.

Last Saturday night, my wife and I returned home around midnight after having been out on a tour of high school graduation parties. As we pulled up the driveway, we were quite surprised to see a doe making a hasty exit from our driveway/garage area, and we were impressed at the leap the deer made over a retention wall. We pulled the car in and went to bed.

On Sunday morning, I went out into my driveway and was shocked to see all the Lilly Pads gone and the stems chewed down to nubs!!!

I've never known deer to eat Lilly Pads, but now I'm starting to wonder if the damage to new Lilly Pads I've tried to plant in the past was not due to turtles, and maybe due to deer.

Seems odd to me. But, I guess lily pads could be considered forbs.

It also raises the question of the correct spelling...is it "lily" or "lilly?"

Deer eat lily pads, and sometimes submerged pond plants. Some deer may identify as moose:)

In my experience deer could navigate ladders to eat your most treasured plants on the roof. They put in extra effort when they see something in a pot put out just for them. The lengths they have gone through to get at my planted trees blows my mind where there is so much other forage for them to work with.
I saw one paw fencing away from a sapling that I had staked in firmly so it could eat it. Luckily I saw it happen or else there would be nothing of it left. It really wanted the white pine contained within.

I think deer prefer "new growth". I don't know if it tastes better, is more nutritious, is easier to digest, etc.?

I do know that if I fertilize my saplings and they grow out of the tops of the tree tubes, the deer will go out of their way to eat that new growth. Also, if I cut back some old trees when I don't have herbicide with me, they will eat the heck out of the new shoots the next spring.

They are always eating this new growth, even while the rest of the property is also covered with deer food that is growing at a slower rate.

I think it is possible that deer can see plants that have more nutrients than others, as they do tend to go after gardens and plantings that have been fertilized. They tend to ignore my trees that I haven’t fertilized when planting them. The deer will also target exotics, plants that are not normally on their diet. Who doesn’t like a little variety now and then?

I am not a hunter, but the kids that come here are. I make sure and encourage them to not just target the big bucks. I want the herds thinned! One early spring, when the deer will congregate, we had an uncountable number of deer in a single group. At least 60. Way too many.

Our mule deer eat a lot of sagebrush, especially in winter. Some individual plants get heavily browsed; others very lightly munched. I believe I've read that the plants respond to browsing by upping the production of chemical deterrents, making themselves unpalatable to the deer.
We have a young, maybe 5 year old, Artemisia tridentata that survived very heavy deer browsing one winter and now is avoided by the yard deer.
I'm not so sure that sagebrush obligate species such as pronghorn antelope and greater sage grouse are put off by anything that sagebrush can produce. They love the stuff. Interestingly, sage grouse are known to actually gain weight during winter eating nothing but sagebrush while wading in deep snow.

I hate that for you Sunil.

We have pretty much shut down firearms over the last year or two. No hunting, and adding the automatic chicken door to our fish feeder meant no more racoon traps. Because of that, we have tons of deer that are extremely comfortable and eat succulents and flowers all around the house. I know deer have a limited color range, but the deer and goats love the red flowers on crepe myrtles.

If you shoot often enough, the deer get used to it. I have had deer at the 100 yd target butt when shooting at a target at 200 yds and they didn't have a care in the world.