The deerly departed! How pesky stags were stopped from eating graveside f lowers
... just spray the blooms with POLISH
THEY have long proven a menace to mourners – the starving stags and hinds who scoff the floral tributes left in graveyards.
But staff at one cemetery have now found a unique way to deter the hungry herds... by spraying blooms with furniture polish.
Deer living in woodland near the tiny Na Birlinn cemetery, ten miles south of Fort William, Inverness-shire, frequently eat up the bouquets and wreaths left following every funeral.
With no fence or wall surrounding the graveyard, the flowers are easy pickings.
Now the team in charge of the 100-year-old cemetery’s upkeep are encouraging mourners to bring a can of furniture polish with them on each visit after discovering it leaves a waxy finish on the flowers which repels deer.
David MacKinnon, chairman of the cemetery committee, said: ‘It was a bad problem and distressing for the mourners, who would place flowers by the graves of their loved ones and by next morning only the stems would be left.
‘I could be down there cutting the grass on a ride-on mower and the deer would be just standing there nearby watching me, waiting for me to finish and leave so they could get on with foraging for flowers. The deer knew what they were about. They aren’t daft.’
He said his wife Eileen, who is also a member of the committee, heard about deer not liking the taste of furniture polish. He said: ‘So she sprayed some flowers with it and they weren’t eaten.
‘Now we have a sign displayed prominently on the cemetery noticeboard telling mourners that if they don’t want their wreaths or flowers munched by the deer, to spray them with furniture polish.
‘Any brand of polish seems to work but the spray-on type is easiest to apply.’
The cemetery committee treasurer, Ann Marie Cameron, said: ‘The spray puts a waxy covering on the flowers which seems to repel the deer. They must not like the taste. The deer used to have field days on special occasions like Mother’s Day and so on.
‘The next day we used to find empty flower holders littered all over the cemetery where deer had picked up the flowers in their teeth and shaken their heads to free them from the metal or porcelain holders.
‘But it was a surprise to us all to discover that the furniture polish trick really worked. It is excellent.
‘I have a lot of family in the cemetery and it is good that their flowers are now being left in peace.’
‘The waxy covering seems to repel deer’