"Pruning" Aubretia

I thought I'd share some info on the above. Normally I prune Aubretia to say about 3 inches from the ground immediately after flowering and sometimes I get a slight repeat flowering later in the season. I didn't used to prune again as I thought too late to do so.
This winter we had 3 flaming deer here which set up camp in my garden as they'd decided my garden was their winter "Supermarket". After demolishing various of their favourite things (Ivy, Camellia, Golden Yew, evergreen Azaleas to name but few..sigh) they set to on an Aubretia bank which is about 50 mtres long. They ate the Aubretia down to the ground and I accepted that I'd either loose the lot or no flowers this Spring...WRONG I have the best show of Aubretia ever. Yes it was a little later to start to flower but I had no idea that you could prune to nothing in about late Feb and it would recover and flower so well. So if anybody forgets to prune don't worry, slaughter it is the middle of winter and hey presto. Alternatively I'd be happy to loan you the deer to do the job for you!

 

At first when you said "flaming deer" i thought ooh that sounds unusual is it herbaceous??

 

My first thought was that Silu was referring to a plant too.

 

Not wanting to kill them or remove them, but the land is too big for an electric fence, then maybe the only option is to put an electric fence up around a much smaller area that you can then use as your garden, but let the deer have the wrest of the land. That way you get the best of both

Also if your planting trees you can build tree guards that protects them. There is a place near where i live called dunham park. They have acres of land with deer roaming freely, most of the smaller trees have wooden shields built around them, but they also have amazing gardens there too that are seperate from the deer. If you can find somewhere like that near where you live you could visit it for inspiration.
I think bracken looks really good in huge big fields and it spreads really fast too.