Sick of planting a feast for local deer?

Learn deer-management tactics at an upcoming program

RINGWOOD – For those with a green thumb, this time of year is filled with both anticipation and frustration. It’s rewarding to see the fruits of previous labor sprouting forth. But nothing can spoil that satisfied feeling as much as looking out to find the neighborhood deer enjoying an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Considered to have reached “problematic numbers” in many parts of the state, according to nj.gov, they can quickly turn hundreds of dollars’ worth of landscaping into a ravaged wasteland.

While there are remedies that can deter deer from browsing through a garden, the best defense is, as they say, a good offense.

That’s where landscape designer Emil Rostello, Jr. comes in. With more than 10 years of experience working in areas plagued by a large deer population and an education that includes environmental design and ornamental horticulture, Rostello has had to incorporate deer-resistant plantings into many of his landscape designs.

Rostello, a designer and salesperson at Jacobsen Landscape Design and Construction in Midland Park, will be sharing his knowledge of deer-resistant plantings in a presentation at the New Jersey State Botanical Garden on Saturday, May 11.

Rostello’s presentation is intended for the home gardener and is more “plant-centric,” he says, demonstrating different substitutions for popular plants, as well as design strategies to achieve a “dynamic-looking” landscape.

Rostello tailors his designs to be appropriate to the deer population in a given area. There are some areas, such as Kinnelon, where the deer devastate local gardens. This is when more drastic measures are called for, including some plant species that, if not kept in check, are considered invasive.

These types of situations will be covered in the program at the Gardens.

“It’s an hour-long program, but I tend to talk a lot, to keep it open and rolling, and to encourage questions, so it usually runs about an hour and a half,” says Rostello. “It’s not so much a talk as an exchange of ideas.”