This blog is written by Missy, one of the designers at our shop:

This is the first blog I’ve ever written, so here we go. I decided to start with one of the funniest stories in gardening I’ve ever had the pleasure to be a part of. I am a landscape designer at Dee-sign Landscaping & Garden Shop. Often a customer will come to me with a problem they are having in their yard and they expect me to have all the answers.  I try my best. 

This particular customer was having problems with slugs eating the leaves on their Hostas. She lives in an area that is considered ‘forested’ here in Omaha so she prefers to keep things organic and avoid chemicals. I suggested that she place a few plates with beer on them on the ground around her Hosta garden. The slugs crawl in and they die, so it’s a cheap easy way to take care of a pest that doesn’t involve chemicals. She, of course, thought this sounded like an excellent idea. She went to the store that afternoon and purchased a beer and tried out my suggestion. The next day she called . She then recounted this story to me.

 “Well I went to the store and got a beer, as you suggested. The only single ones they sold were 40 oz beers.” She thought, lets get them all, so she had filled three glasses up with the beer. She was excited to see if it worked the next morning so she went outside bright and early. She told me the first glass was empty so she moved on the second it was almost completely empty she then looked at the third glass to find it half full. She wondered what the heck had happened. She then went back inside and looked out the kitchen window into the back yard. A giant buck was lying there in the middle of the yard. It wasn’t the first time she’s had a buck in her yard, and it was still early, so she thought nothing of it. 

After the sun was fully up, and the deer was still lying there, it finally dawned on her what had happened. She said that it was almost 2:00 before that deer tried to stand up and he was still a bit shaky when he did. So, my advice for repelling deer is to put out three large cups of beer because I’m betting he had a nasty hangover and won’t be back. Joking, of course!

 The beer trick only works for slugs, but it has to be a shallow plate or lid that they can crawl into. I suggested that she try again, using the plates, as I first told her. She said all the beer was gone and she didn’t want the people at the store to think she had a drinking problem. She decided to live with the slugs, if they were still there.

–Missy