How to contain plant-eating varmints and hail on deck planters by Ed Powers

We have lived in our house in Evergreen for the past 7 years. And for the past 6&1/2 years we have battled plant-eating varmints and hail on our deck planters. We started with pots that had wire cages that we built. Well, the varmints managed to get thru the cage and destroyed our plants. We then bought hangers and hanging planter bags and put wire cages around them. Again, both the varmints and hail got the plants.

Half way through this summer we decided to put pots that sat on the deck railing and put plastic sheet plastic on each side of the planters on the railing. It partially worked: we stopped the varmints from getting in. At the same time we set up a night-vision game camera to find out who the culprits were. No luck, we were only able to get a picture of a tail.

Not only could we not discover what the varmints were, but the hail again destroyed our flowers. Out of desperation, we designed and built a modified mini greenhouse type enclosure.

We made it from a 24 inch clear plastic roofing material (my terminology) (cut from a 8 foot sheet) supported with 15 inch high and 24 inch wide ¾ inch pvc. We then forced the enclosure to stay in place with a piece of wood at each end. All materials were bought at an home improvement store.