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Deer proof plants?

apcardyapcardy Posts: 19
in Plants
I would like to have some colour in our front garden but unfortunately, as we discovered last year, the local deer population seem to find many flowers very tasty :/. Has anyone got any suggestions for colourful plants/flowers I can use? Suggestions for any and/or all seasons welcome.
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  • ButtercupdaysButtercupdays Posts: 4,546
    Don't have deer (so far!) but do have sheep that manage a foray from time to time. Roses, hemerocallis and centaurea are popular, plus other flower heads, (tulips, sweet peas, marigolds, cornflowers) but I have never seen them touch the crocosmias even though there are lots to try. Lambs try the new foxglove leaves, but never eat more than a taste and the hellebores and aconites haven't been touched and surprisingly neither have the dahlias. Wanda, our most frequent getter-outer, knows her way round the borders and always heads straight for Gertrude Jekyll and the daylilies!
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    Unfortunately, they'll have a go at lots of things, and you may need to accept you'll have to use protective barriers round anything. They also have to be high enough.
     
    @steephill has muntjacs coming in regularly, and may be able to advise, but it also depends what kind of deer you have.  :)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • steephillsteephill Posts: 2,841
    Muntjac eat everything and roe deer are almost as bad. Hardy fuchsia is usually left alone, crocosmia flowers get eaten. Daffodils snowdrops and crocus survive but tulips don't. Bluebells are eaten. Hellebores are left alone as are hydrangeas and buddleia. My agapanthus had been mainly ignored until this year when they were eaten to the ground.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    @chicky has deer visiting her garden ... she may have some tips ... 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • steephillsteephill Posts: 2,841
    The RHS has advice on deer resistant plants here - https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=185

  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited October 2021
    Some online companies like Crocus have filters to list deer and rabit resistance. I don't know how wishful the listings are.




  • ErgatesErgates Posts: 2,953
    It’s not just eating that’s the problem. We have had damage from the roebuck cleaning his antlers on a bottlebrush bush and two different magnolias. 
    No one eats the bluebells in our garden, or the daffodils or narcissi. I think it was the deer that has just taken all the tops off a verbena bonariensis in the last week. The weigela has never been touched. 
  • chickychicky Posts: 10,410
    edited October 2021
    For colourful flowers, paeonies are good, and so are oriental poppies.  Echinops are left alone, and so are the centaurea montana.  An exciting discovery for me last year was the fancy salvias (like Amistad) are left alone, as are lavender, aubretia and lithodora.  And the annual rudbeckias are good (the hirta ones).  Unfortunately the perennial rudbeckias, like Goldstrum, get beheaded.

    For spring daffs, chionodoxa, Scilla, snowdrops, alliums and the snakes head fritillaries are ok.

    And for summer bedding lobelia, isotoma, bacopa , nemesia and the annual salvias are good.

    So you are restricted, but it’s not impossible to get a good show.

    My policy has been to get one of something and see what happens - kind of a sacrificial offering.  If it survives in tact then I buy lots more 🤣
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    I'd agree - some plants that are listed aren't always so good when in situ, and as @Ergates says, there's extra damage apart from their teeth. 
    The same applies to so called rabbit resistant plants. They'll have a go at almost anything which is a big part of the problem for emerging foliage in spring. 

    @Fire - McLarens is my 'local' nursery, and I used to stay just along the road from it. I asked the woman who runs it one day how they managed to keep the rabbits out [a bigger problem there than deer]  but it's a case of bulk planting. There's just too many plants for them to get a stranglehold, and I expect the number of people present a lot of the time also helps. The adjacent golf course means there's always something to eat anyway  ;)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • WelshwindyhillsWelshwindyhills Posts: 58
    Sadly as new deer visit our garden, they will try most plants. However, they don’t seem to try sedum, lavender, fuchsias (especially those with red stems), weigelia, primroses, hardy geraniums, crocosmia, irises, persicaria, hydrangea, buddleia, azalea, asters, Himalayan honeysuckle, forsythia, hebes, pieris. For foliage try cordyline, euphorbia, cannas, bananas, palms. Don’t take my word for it though as they seem to vary their garden diet every year so it’s trial and error …… and as for the rabbits grr!!
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