Deer Resistance, is there Hope?

American Nurseryman chimes in on deer resistant plants. It’s not like we haven’t seen a list very similar to this before-we have, but that doesn’t mean we can’t run the list again, and again. Why, well people forget, or lose that list, or link to that list.

Personally I have had a lot of experience with deer. In my previous abode it was not unusual to see 5 or 6 deer in the middle of the back yard during the day. As we moved into winter it was double that or more along the tree line as the deer were scurrying about looking for anything to eat.

This includes my constant struggles to find bird-feeders that were not routinely cleaned out by the deer and squirrels(oops, another long story).

To find plant material the deer would shy away from was difficult in the best of times, and damn near impossible in the worst of times. I believe to this day that only a strong and consistent rotation of deer-repellant products saved most of the woody’s I had planted around the foundation of the house.

Let me emphasize part of that last statement. A consistent rotation of deer-repellant products. Not just one applied on a regular basis, but several and it is best you try those offered in your area to find what works best for you.

In East Central Ohio the deer are so thick they even went after the juniper sp. of which I had several around the yard. This is the only place I’ve ever lived/worked where deer went after the juniper. They even went after the “birds nest spruce” during the winter.

I can say this with certainty. They did stay away from al the different boxwood sp. that I had planted, and they did stay away from the barberry sp. also. We had to wrap the “weeping Sargent hemlocks”(had some great ones), even spraying was not enough.

One other group of plants I had great success with was ornamental grasses, and I had 100s of them, especially panicum’s, the deer herd never bothered them. They’d walk through the grass garden, for sure, to get to the other plant material, that was the only damage the grass gardens suffered.

I’ve designed landscapes in several different parts of the country and I am known for saying –

If a deer’s hungry enough, he’ll eat the plant, the roots, and then he’ll even try to eat the container.

I knew some groundskeepers in South Carolina and they would tell me stories of deer wiping out masses of plants around certain holes on their golf courses. Plants there and literally overnight, boom, gone the next day.

Final thought is this. These list are scientific fact, but they are a tool for the toolbox in the war to deter the deer from eating away your hard earned money, your labor, and the beauty of your garden.

So, use list like this, but don’t hold the list-maker accountable if their suggestions don’t work in your part of the country.

Putting Deer on a Diet from American Nurseryman

It’s a never-ending battle: You design a winning landscape, your clients are thrilled-and then the local deer population dines on the newly installed garden. You can tear out the damaged plants and start over again, but what do you plant this time?

You’ve tried scaring them away. You’ve tried fencing them out. Somehow, deer still can find a way to their favorite snacks and ravage a garden seemingly overnight. There’s a plethora of reliable, reasonably priced, readily available products on the market, but your clients want to protect the wildlife as well as their gardens.

Although it may seem like a no-win situation, if you work in an area where there’s increasing deer pressure – and who doesn’t these days? – you can choose from a broad range of plants that aren’t appetizing to deer. Keeping in mind that a ravenous doe will find nearly anything palatable, it’s certainly worth your time and your clients’ money to specify selections that have proved to be less tasty than others.

Lists of purportedly deer-resistant plants abound, and most are based on observation rather than scientific trials. Over a number of seasons, however, a keen observer develops a time-tested sense of what’s savory – and what survives.

Here, then, are suggestions for plants that may reduce the temptation and drive deer to look for a tastier meal elsewhere. A couple of caveats must accompany this abbreviated list: One, depending on conditions and region, a few may be considered to have invasive tendencies. If there’s any question, choose another. And two, there’s never a guarantee that pesky critters will simply walk away. But it’s worth trying a new plant.

So they put up a fence. Not just any fence: The arboretum built a 3-mile-long barrier along the property’s southern border. It stands 10 feet tall and is composed of 8 feet of woven wire mesh topped by two wires strung along its length. The galvanized, high-tensile steel structure cost $260,000 – funded by a private donation – and is similar to fencing used to deter deer at orchards, vineyards and nurseries throughout Minnesota. The mesh is an effective deterrent, but it’s not plainly visible from a distance.

Fencing them out