Deer do not eat all plants. There are a few that are toxic to them. There are more that deer simply dislike. With a minimal bit of research, it is not difficult to find a few lists of plant species that deer are supposed to avoid. The problem with such lists though, is that deer do not read them. Only toxic plants are reliably safe from deer.
It would not be so bad if only deer were a bit more cooperative. They would be welcome in gardens if they ate only weeds that no one wants anyway. We all know that they can eat weeds, they just choose not to do so while they are in our gardens.
For that matter, gophers would not be such a problem if they ate only weeds, and aerated only soil that needs it. Instead, they seem to target the most important plants they can find, and excavate primarily in lawns. There is no effort to cooperate.
For as long as people have been growing vegetation, whether as agricultural commodities or in landscapes, people have been competing with wildlife of one form or another, or several others. Wildlife is no more cooperative now than it was many thousands of years ago. Some animals are even less cooperative than their ancestors were. Some are downright defiant!
Gophers have been known to push traps out from their tunnels, without springing the traps. Some will emerge from their subterranean tunnels to step over the tops of root cages that are designed to exclude them, just to get to the roots within. The gopher associated with the excavation seen in the picture above was not so defiant, but was certainly undeterred.
The foliage at the center of the picture is gopher purge. Although not planted here intentionally, it used to be planted around vegetable gardens to deter gophers. It has a caustic sap that is very irritating to gophers if they try to excavate through the roots. However, the picture clearly shows excavation to the left, to the right, and behind the gopher purge.
Nothing lasts forever. Spring flowers fade. Summer fruit gets eaten. Fall color falls from the trees and gets raked away. Berries and other small fruits that ripen to provide a bit of color through late autumn get eaten by birds and squirrels through winter. Every type of berry and every season is unique. It is impossible to predict how long particular berries will last through any particular season.
Some of the most convenient bird feeders in the garden are some of the many plants we grow. Since so many plants exploit the birds as much as they get exploited by the birds, they naturally produce something that the birds want, when they want it. Right now, meaty seeds cater to migratory birds that need to plump up to travel, hoping that some of the seeds get dropped elsewhere or buried for later (hence ‘sown’ if forgotten, as they often are).
If gopher burrows had windows, this burrow would have hillside views. If gophers had better eyesight, the one who lives here could enjoy the views from such windows. Of course, views are not a concern for any gopher. They just want to burrow through the soil to eat the many roots they encounter. They do not often emerge from their homes for more than the ejection of soil.
Wildlife is a topic that is notably lacking from my articles. I mention only that which must be ‘escorted’ out of the landscapes, like 
Anyone who has ever owned a cat knows that no one owns a cat. They do whatever they want to do, whenever and however they want to do it. They take orders from no one. If they decide to use a dry spot in the garden as their litterbox, or a tree trunk as their scratching post, it is impossible to dissuade them. They are so smug and arrogant. It is no wonder that so many dogs dislike them.
These are perfect conditions for crop circles. Even without any convenient grain crops, there is plenty of tall grass in unmanaged and ungrazed fields. All this grass needs is to be crafted into crop circles.
They were impossible to miss. They came at a weird time too.
Not just any nuts, but precisely the sort that I recently discussed with a colleague, as I explained how they do not grow here. The nuts that is. The big thicket forming shrubs that are supposed to produce them not only grow here, but are a relatively common native. I just rarely see even a single nut on them. I sort of wondered how they mange to procreate with such rare seeds that invariably get taken by unconcerned rodents or birds.
Tony Tomeo 