Deer-Resistant Plants, Flowers, and Shrubs: Deer-Proof Your Garden!

Northern WI--they EAT EVERYTHING. Only solution is high fencing (and be sure it is VERY sturdy by late winter). Nothing and I mean NOTHING stops them. Boy was I fooled at the garden center "these are very deer resistant" or "will be poisonous, toxic, belly aches", etc.--and the deer ran up to them like candy with no visible bad effects. Ate everything RIGHT WHEN flowing too, which was ultra depressing! No sprays, no spices, no commercial stuff-NOTHING STOPS THEM.

I have found it fascinating that I read so many articles from many different people and publications that tell me how deer will not eat fragrant type plants such as sage, etc. Well, I live at 9,000 feet in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, and I have many wildlife come through eating about everything that I've ever planted, plus various species that grow around my home. I'm here to tell you that what deer will not eat may go for whitetail deer but not mule deer! I haven't found but a very few things that mule deer will not eat! They graze my chives and winter onions to the ground. I have 3 different types of mountain sage in my yard area and they brouse on those frequently. Camas and iris fall prey to them when blooming. And, I've even watched them browse the tender branch end needles off yellow pine, for, and spruce. I've even seen them tearing up on hind legs to get at mistletoe that has attacked my yellow pine! I would think that would be deadly to them, but they seem to have no problem with it. All these plus more, the deer will eat even when browsing plants, grasses, and trees are readily available! I would enjoy hearing your take on this.

Deer were eating all of my lilacs except the Hungarian Lilac Bush. Had to fence in all the other Lilacs, wow. Even Cornell coop extension said deer didn't eat lilac. Laughed so hard almost fell off my horse. There is plenty of cornfields/hayfields around my place for the deer to eat, HMMMM. Fenced up all my vegetable gardens and now the lilacs are fenced.

I live in Central Texas. Deer hang out in my yard everyday. They will NOT eat elephant ears, Coral Bean, Yellow trumpet vine, lantana, Salvia(anytype), irises (On occasion might).Crepe Myrtle and Youpan Berry Bush and holly bushes. Have lived here through drought and plenty. These survived all and the deer.

Deer will not eat VINCA FLOWER. Our only guaranteed no chomp here in hi pop deer area. It looks a lot like Impatient, (which they love), won't touch it!

If deer make it impossible to even bother gardening, use artificial plants - there are many to choose from. I have some that look like bushes, and a lot of colored artificial succulents - people actually thought they were real. My reasoning was that I'm just plain tired of weeding. Those I mentioned are in front of our home, on sides of our brick pathway. I pour vinegar in between the bricks to keep weeds away - works perfectly & lasts a long time.

We have to fence in our Bleeding hearts, otherwise, the nibble them right down to the Ground.

We have to fence in our Bleeding hearts, otherwise, the nibble them right down to the Ground.

I have seen deer eat ivy. A friend had deer eat all her flowers, so she stuck fake flowers in the ground. Next day she noticed they even pulled them up! They must of discovered they were fake, and spit them out!

Thanks very much. Very helpful article!

An old woman from Eastern Europe gave me this tip. Since deer will avoid meat produce, smearing the leaves of plants with animal fat will keep them away.

Nana would always "Feed " the Deer AWAY from her gardens until spring. MARIGOLDS DEER DO NOT LIKE! HANDS DOWN! Now as to Deer Resistance, she would save" The pie pans(Aluminum )" ones the ones from say from store bought Apple, Pumpkin, or just plain go and buy some, and string a few around her Gardens, Yes gaudy looking BUT when they are rattling in the breeze or swinging the noise and flashing deter the deer, as well as " Liquid Fence"! The Latter stinks at first then not so much. Up Side DEER HATE the concoction, down side, it will have to dry completely and needs to be applied after EVERY RAIN! I Highly Recommend the CONCENTRATE and a small garden Pump Sprayer, seems the Ready Mix is a bit weak. I go around my Property , and spray the Gardens as well . I have watched the deer come to the line STAMP there feet nose the ground and walk away. Also my rednose Pitty keeps them away. She tells them" MY PROPERTY" My Other "Children" have made 'friends' with them LOL some watch dogs. Good Planting All. "Plant Long and Prosper,' May The Force Be with You"

My grandmother raised us with the notion that every creature has a right to food. Some days it was her turn to feed the wildlife found near her farm. We have a herd of eight deer that wander the neighborhood. They have done a wonderful job of cleaning up grass clippings, managing the berry patch, and keeping some other weeds under control. During the winter they cleaned up the bird seed that fell out of the feeders. There is this plant with little purple-pink flowers that the deer seem to avoid even walking in. Some one said it is in the mint family and grows very well in shade. The food garden came with an electric fence. I'll see how things go with the deer this summer. I want to take the fence down.

No such thing here on the east coast of Florida. I gave up gardening entirely. Why waste my money to feed the deer. I might as well go buy sacks of kernel corn for them.

They will certainly eat zinnias.

The deer eat everything except my Primrose. They have NEVER bothered them. They eat my Hosta, my Black-eyed Susan's and my Reblooming Daylilies.

We bought starter peppers that we thought were mild bell peppers. They weren't. We have Scandinavian roots and we can't tolerate too much heat in our peppers, but we tried. These peppers grew really well and we tried to bake and stuff them, put them in soups, pair them with cheese...nothing helped the hotness... but one morning...they were all gone from the garden - like, 30 hot peppers! The deer ate them! We laughed at the image. Do you think it was deer? Or something else?

One thing you can use to help repel deer, squirrels, etc. is spraying your plants with a hot sauce! Every mammal has heat receptors in their mouths, and so they don't like hot sauce. The only thing is you have to reapply it after it rains. A version of this will also work to keep squirrels out of your bird feeders. Just mix the seeds with a hot chili powder. Birds don't have heat receptors, so it won't bother them but it will the squirrels.

Do you have any suggestions for squirrel and rabbit resistant plants. My squirrels ate everything they are not supposed to eat last year. Would love any suggestions before I start planting this year.

Deer eat my husbands muscadines (Southern style grapes). They mature late in the summer. Do you think planting these deer resistant plants below the vines would run them off. Would the odor drift up to the muscadines? Thanks

Deer here in Pittsburgh will eat the holly, prickles and all. They also trim the arborvitaes into ice-cream cones. They seem to eat anything young, but may leave it alone once it's older. Of course, once the sprouts are older, usually the grass is up and they can graze that, instead. Our local garden center made an (inadvertent?) funny on this subject. They have permanent overhead signs in their yard to help locate things. Last year, under the sign for Deer-Resistant plants, some worker with a forklift had left a pallet of boulders. Hm-m-m.

You list, deer won't eat lilacs. Well, I'm watching deer eating my lilacs right now & they keep coming back. And it has not been a bad winter. It's been warm & hardly any snow. But here they come to eat my lilacs and my Holly bushes too, another one you say they don't eat, well yes they do, they eat the Holly bush but spit out the red berries!

I have maintained a small ornamental conifer nursery in Northern Vermont for the past 35 years and the only unfriendly deer product that hands down deer avoid is Leadnus Vulgare. I have found one ounce slugs work best with #9 shot. You are wasting your time with any of the plant matter discussed.

I wonder how many of us consider that the biggest problem is that we keep pushing our remaining wildlife into smaller and smaller areas where they cannot forage enough? Mesnwhile we continue to expand and consume without thought to the other species we share the planet with. No matter, at the present spiralling extinction rate they will soon be gone....and then so will we.

I have to agree that there are certain plants they do seem to avoid but there are numerous ones on this list that they have a particular liking for. American Holly...yup...they feasted on it like it was a delicacy. They also love barberry, boxwood, bachelors buttons, pachysandra , yucca and Black-eyed Susans. Don’t even get me started on all those “ fuzzy-leaved” plants they’re supposed to avoid...like hollyhocks. They attack them until there is nothing but a green, leafless and flowerless stalk left. Maybe this list is okay in a more urban setting??....but in a rural area....not so much.

Even though I'm more of a perennial gal, I've always planted zinnias in the summer because they added pop to my garden and the deer never touched them--until this year. All the zinnia flower buds were chomped off within a few days after I planted them. Same with my salvia and bee balm--deer never touched them before but this year they've eaten the tops of them off. I've had to put them behind a deer fence or spray them. Something eats my echinacea every year but I'm beginning to suspect its rabbits since they aren't eaten once they manage to get past a certain height...

I am figuring out that "deer resistant" means it's not their first choice of meal. I planted a landscape that was listed on this site for 3 seasons blooming. I used bee balm instead of a listed perennial and that was the first thing they went after, flower, leaves and stem. They also love Bleeding Heart, Weigela, Delphinium, Black Eyed Susan, apple tree leaves, cherry tree leaves. The good news is, they haven't touched my Black Lace Elderberry, Coral Bells (yet). Maybe we just have mutant deer that don't know they're eating deer resistant plants but it's very disheartening not to mention expensive.

Do deer eat Mandeville plants?

I used to be able to grow Hollyhocks, Petunias, Pansies, and numerous other flowers without deer ever touching any of them UNTIL our neighbors started feeding them. Ever since then, I haven't been able to keep deer out of my garden, and I NEVER fed them! It really irritates me how inconsiderate some people can be of their neighbors who put a lot of time and work, not to mention money, into their gardens. Some folks don't realize that once they start feeding deer, they are forever attracted to every garden in the area. Other neighbors do know this, and simply don't care. They do what they want to do, regardless of the consequences for anyone else. Very, very selfish and insensitive!

You have Zinnia listed at the last plant on your list that deer (supposedly) rarely eat. I have news for you. They eat, eat, eat Zinnias! I grew Zinnias from seed in last year's garden, and deer ate every last one that came up, before it ever had a chance to bud or bloom. You have also listed coneflower among their typical leave-alones. Not so! When I grew coneflower, deer kept eating off the buds and blossoms. This didn't just happen once in awhile. It happened regularly. These two plants are NOT deer resistant, in the least. Just thought you should know.

So far in our area, we've found the only things the deer won't eat are Lambs Ear and lavender. Roses seem to be a favorite! I wish the weeds were tastier......

Do you have a list of Rabbit Resistant Plants and Flowers. Last summer the rabbits eat most of our vegetable garden, with a 6 foot fence around it. Are there maybe herbs that deter rabbits? Really need advice before planting our garden this year.

I thank you for republishing the Deer Resistant plants. In Victoria, BC Canada we have herds of deer. I love flowers so when my neighbour planted Cosmos and said the deer won't eat them I immediately planted many Cosmos. Last summer I had a nice display of colour along with Alyssum. So you can safely add Cosmos to your list. If anyone else has found a flower that deer don't nibble, please post it.

While neighbors may delight in feeding deer here close to the lake in NW Arkansas, I would rather just watch them do their own thing in the woods while I tend to my flowers and look at the lake. No such luck! The deer all want to top off their meal in my yard with tasty tidbits of Hosta, Hibiscus, Roses, Hens and Chickens, Boston Fern fronds, Wandering Jew, Elephant Ears, Rose Moss, 4 O'Clocks, and our Japanese Maple (which is a dwarf tree that stand only 4 ft tall) I also have a succulent garden that does not seem to offend or stop them, I have also tried lavender, marigold and sage, no luck. Will try some of the others. Our deer seem to be "non-plant offenders".

Barberry plants, esp. Japanese Barberry, hide loads of ticks that cause Lyme Disease. Do NOT plant these in your yard, or anywhere near you!

All our lilac bushes that are our mule deer can access are trimmed of leaves as high as they can reach standing on their hind legs. I'd read several articles that deer won't eat potato plant leaves. We learned the hard way that this is not so. We had to put up an eight foot fence in a small area where we had planted potatoes outside the main garden.

Hosta, Holly, Hydranga, Rhodies, and Day Lillies are favorites for deer in Westchester County, NY. Arborvide is another of their favorites. Most unprotected arborvites here look like lolliepops because of deer browsing They don't seem to like Boxwoods, Spiraea, or Inkberries and leave them alone. But in a bad winter, unless it makes them physically sick, they'll eat anything It would be nice if they developed a taste for poison ivy, as we have plenty of that

So the point is to push the deer from their lands? same for the rest of the wildlife.. shame.

Hello gardening friends - I can safely say in the Hudson Valley of NY that your Black Eyed Susans are NOT safe from the deer even with a nice variety of other available plants to them. I have a 4 ft high fenced yard (can't be any higher due to local zoning), 2 dogs who are out in the yard daily so plenty of their scent around, and after recently clearing weeds, just overnight the deer have decimated my susies, every single plant, no matter where in the yard they were. I may try mixing some basil around them for next year, but there's not much else I can do for this season. Just wanted to share!!

I live in Northern Ontario in the country. The white tailed deer here eat my plants and shrubs. Peonies before they bloom (tight buds), coneflowers, love hostas, garden flocks, lilies, tulips, any flowered shrub lilacs, hydrangea, geraniums, beabalm, and recently petunias. If the deer don't eat them the critters like chipmunks will! I have a small raised bed that I'm going to plant flowers in. Any suggestions? I'm thinking lavender and sage. To add more colour what could you suggest?

I have to laugh--I live in the hills above Salem, Oregon where deer are rampant. My property is covered in every plant mentioned in the first paragraph of this article--arborvitae, fir, hostas, daylilies, and English ivy--and the deer don't eat them! Of course, we don't have white-tailed deer here, so maybe they enjoy a different diet.

We fenced our house, barn and garden areas, about 5 acers, specifically to keep the deer out. Damage to the plants was very heavy and nearly daily, the population of deer and rabbits was just out of hand. We live rurally in Montana and ticks were a continuous problem also, with the two main tick population boosters at bay the number of ticks we find is down over 90% in just a short time. The rabbits are eliminated by the hawks, our cat, with occasion help from S&W.

I had a beautiful full huge Hydranga purple plant in the front yard. It was blooming. It wa very large. Once I planted it in ground, before I could get some fencing around it. The deer had eaten it down to the ground and left nothing but a few sticks.

Every year, my tulips will pop out of the ground, and the deer will eat them before they can even form a bud. But I have a new trick! I have planted 6 dozen new tulip bulbs, and I get my husband to pee around them! So far, no deer!

I read deers do not like prickly plants..... ha ha ha I have an old rose with mighty thorns and deers have eaten a couple of stalks all the way to the ground. Another thing deers love is a young pear tree. Bought a sand pear tree for hubby, about 7 foot tall, they ate the whole tree all the way to the ground. Nothing left. Dogwoods, roses, but not my hydrangeas YET, they love the leaves of my purple potatoes vines and Indian Awthorn. Had to replace all my landscape in front of house. They love also the camelias, small azaleas, All bulb plants. especially agapanthers I am really sick of deers. So far they have left alone plumbago???? but I a sure they might be next. They stop at my house, I guess I have the right kind of buffet for them. The houses down the street stay intact.

I guess the truth is they will eat anything if they are hungry. I am in Eastern Ontario (not far from Ottawa) and they love hostas, hydrangea, lilacs, fir, cedar and pine trees for sure. They will even eat my rose buds just before they bloom. Never seem to touch junipers (both skyrocket and ground cover types), purple coneflower, nine bark, blue spruce, daffodils, silver mound. We are in cottage country and unfortunately some people feed the deer which only encourages them to hang around populated areas when they would do fine staying in the bush.

I've tried a variety of the plants on deer-resistant lists sometimes with success and then suddenly not. I mentioned the problem to the chief horticulturalist at Mt. Vernon Mansion and told him that this year the deer chomped down on my rhododendrons. I planted some rudbekias making sure they were the cultivar on the deer-resistant lists only to have them eaten. He laughed and said, "Deer don't read those lists." He explained that some years they seem to eat one plant and other years don't touch them.

The deer in my neighborhood eat my Yucca plants every winter.

I would like to know if there is list of flowers and shrubs that will grow in winters at 5 degrees and very hot summers and are also deer tolerant.

how can I rid myself of nematodes naturally?

from Zone 6 near Buffalo, NY. We have dozens of deer, but they have never eaten the Yucca in my yard. Daylilies in the front, unfenced yard have not had the chance to bloom in many years. Buds are eaten as soon as they form. Hosta, save for the toughest leaved varieties, are eaten to the ground. Hibiscus on occasion get a bud or two eaten, but not much on them. Boxwood at present time (2015) is never touched. Spruce were never eaten until the winter of 2013 - 14. Bad winter, many trees on the street were eaten up as far as deer could reach.

I can say that in SW Ohio Rudbeckia, Ecchinacea, ANY variety of rose, Obedient plant, corkscrew willow & crabapple saplings, ruellia, hardy hibiscus, dahlias, clematis & Asiatic lilies are NOT deer resistant. Many of these are on your list. The deer have devoured my flowerbeds. Other than the lilies they've never bothered these plants before this year. They havent touched daylilies, hostas or asclepias, however. And daylilies & hostas are supposed to be their favorites.

I just had a straw flower devoured. My yard in the California foothills is slowly turning to oleander. I've had good luck with star jasmine, rosemary, coreopsis, chives, lavender, euonymus, lupine, and oregano.

Just wondering if the deer need to make reservations for this delicacy served in Restaurants.

I went over the list above and while I have not tried all these plants, most of the one's I have are eaten right up by the deer here in the Poconos. The one's I've had good luck with are Snapdragons,and Lamb's Ear. The one's I can't grow without fencing in are: Butterfly Bush, Common Boxwood, Bleeding Heart, American Holly, Iris, Lavender, DAFFAODIL (always eat flower as about to open), Fern, Peony, and Yucca. The only pine they basically leave alone is Blue Spruce.

If you have a t-post fence up and it is not all enoght to keek the deer out use the t-post extenders from www.tpostextender.com to make your fence taller. The you can have any type of plants easy solve!!!

Hi Marcia,

Deer eat almost anything but some plants they leave alone if there are other food sources around. Yucca is included in most published lists for deer resistant plants because its leaves can be a bit prickly. Some varieties of yucca is more resistant than others. Our list comes from a book, Outwitting Deer, by Bill Adler Jr.

Hate to tell you but your list is wrong. We have Yucca plants in VA and the deer absolutely love them. They are a delicacy served in Restaurants so why they are on the list floors me. Sorry but you are wrong about this plant,