Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Deer resistant plants
Did you know deer LOVE hosta? That’s a rhetorical question!
Those graceful marauders are lovely to watch in winter but once you feed them, they expect the buffet to stay open.
What WON’T a deer eat? A hungry one will eat whatever, but there are deer resistant plants. Check out The Best Plants for 30 Tough Sites (page 14)
Some plants that come immediately to mind include coneflowers and columbine, yarrow and sage.
For shady areas, the old fashioned Bleeding Heart seems to be left alone while the deer graze consistently on the Hosta.
Lily of the Valley (I’m personally not a fan as it’s invasive) are not a favorite dish and Lenten Rose, one of the earliest flowers in the shaded garden also looks to be left alone. They can bloom for a couple of months and usually at the time we could really use something pretty to look at.
For those sunny areas, foxglove and heliopsis don’t appear to be bothered by the deer. Beebalm, boxwood and barberry aren’t bothered by the big Bucks either or the Does but I was on a b roll.
Think plants that are prickly like the juniper, hairy, sticky or thorny like barberries…also poisonous, such as foxlglove.
The same kind of plants that tell us to stay away, tell the deer to back off too.
The exception would be something in the mint family. The smell appears to be a little too much for them. I love spearmint even as it insinuates itself wherever, I just pick it off and sniff! The deer will turn up it’s nose.
