The following Plants
are generally ignored by Deer unless they're desperate. Look for their Symbol
in our regular listings:
Realize, if deer are
starving or in extremely high concentrations competing for food,
they will eat almost anything. These Plants are their last choice.
By inter-planting with these plants, especially the fragrant herbs,
you make you entire garden less appealing to them! They never bother
our gardens and we're convinced that it's because we work in the
fragrant 'herbs' -- Yarrows, Catmints, Agastache, Etc., in every bed
-- and why not - they're gorgeous and long blooming.
Deer's primary defense
is their sense of smell. When a garden has a lot of highly scented
plants, the deer have trouble smelling predators and they realize
that they are more defenseless. So use lots of fragrant herbs
especially larger ones like Perovskia - Russian Sage and Nepetas
that release their strong scent if the deer brush against them.
Also, Deer do not like
grazing extremely low, or too high. Shrubs and trees with foliage
3-5 feet or higher will be less likely to have deer damage.