Pest protection upgrade

When we built a deer fence around our garden last summer, we decked it out with streamers that we cut from the plastic bags our weekly shopping fliers come in. These had the advantages of being lightweight, waterproof, and free. It seemed like a perfect way to put a waste product to good use.

We can't say for sure how effective this line-and-streamer fence has been. On one hand, no deer have intruded into the garden since we built it, but on the other hand, there's no sign that any deer have come into our yard at all during that time. So it's not really clear that the fence deserves the credit for deterring them.

But one thing we know for sure is that the plastic streamers didn't hold up very well. In the first place, they didn't stay put. They were so light that they slid along the fishing line with every breath of wind, so they tended to end up all clumped at one end rather than evenly spaced along the line. We tried just repositioning them every so often, but then they started to come off altogether. I'm not sure whether it was wind, rain, or birds that damaged them, but one way or another, the ends of the streamers kept tearing off and leaving only the little knotted bits sliding about on the line. There clearly wasn't enough up there to make much of a visual barrier for the deer.

Our first idea was to replace the damaged plastic strips with some metallic ribbon, which we thought we could pick up at our local dollar store. When they turned out not to have any, we figured we'd try Michael's the next time we happened to be in that area. But when we had to make a trip to Lowe's for a washer to fix the leaking spout on our rain barrel, I decided to look there for something that might work on the deer fence. And lo and behold, we found a product designed for that exact purpose: Mylar flash tape. Right on the package it says, "Scare critters away!"

The instructions say to cut this stuff into strips 2 to 3 feet long and attach them by a 6-to-8-inch length of string. This is supposed to "assure maximum rotation and reflection" to scare away wildlife. But when Brian tried attaching a streamer this long to one line of the fence, it dangled down and got tangled up in the line below. So instead he went for 15-inch lengths attached just a few feet apart. He used most of the roll this way and is thinking of tying the remaining strips to the branches of our plum trees, in hopes that they will offer at least a mild deterrent to squirrels.

So far, the streamers are simply tied to the fishing line by lengths of additional fishing line. We'll keep an eye on them over the next week or so to see how well they stay in place. If they slide around like the previous ones, Brian plans to add a dab of epoxy to each one to hold it in its proper place. But one thing we can definitely say for the new ribbons is that they're much more presentable than the plastic ones: neatly cut and shimmery, rather than flimsy and tattered. I'd say they were almost worth the five bucks we spent on them for their aesthetic value alone.