Their front yard

When I moved here from Portland, Ore., with my family in 1996, I couldn't believe how beautiful it was. The lakes are crystal clear, the mountains full of big, gorgeous trees, the valley floor blanketed with farmers crops of golden wheat and corn, and an abundance of wildlife running around everywhere.

To be part of all this, and to be a landscaper on top of it and be able to work outside in all this beauty, was and still is a precious gift.

Of course, after landscaping in Portland and filling up plant beds there with a large array of flowers, plants, shrubs and trees, I had the notion that I could add to the natural beauty in the valley and do the same here. Was I ever in for a rude awakening!

For every plant I put in, I think the deer ate two. And funny enough, I kept planting, hoping that their taste would change or something.

If my customers don't want to put up a fence or take on the expense/effort of applying deer repellent to their plants, shrubs and trees, then they have to come to the realization that they are better off with a natural landscape, meaning plenty of native plants with some mixed in from the nurseries that we know the deer just don't like.

And natural is good because there wasn't a lot of landscaping when I moved here and it looked beautiful back then. We can keep the grass mowed nice and neat and pick all the weeds, but the plants are a crapshoot and we all know it.

I think we all need to do what we are going to do if that's our passion, whether that is landscaping, gardening, or a homeowner playing out in their yard making it look nice.

It's all about being outside and enjoying nature. If the deer want to eat the plants in a yard that has no fence or dogs to inhibit them, then lets just keep planting more plants that the nurseries recommend and hope that the deer find someone else's plants or a different neighborhood to eat in this summer.

I have had a large herd of mule deer with about 20 turkeys mixed in grazing in my yard this past couple months. Whatever I had left of plants and shrubs last fall are little sticks today. But I couldn't imagine anything better than waking up in the morning with my cup of coffee, my son eating his cereal next to me, and looking out the window to see God's creatures enjoying their breakfast in peace.

Have a great summer and enjoy Montana!

Amy Schwinghammer

Rojo Landscaping