Plants Deer Don't Love

Deer, like people, have gustatory preferences.

Written and photographed by Carole Ottesen

©iStockphoto.com/Valerie Crafter

"Deer-proof plants" are words to challenge the deer goddess. Utter them and a scourge of desperately hungry deer is sure to strip your garden clean.

"There's nothing deer proof," says Doug Sennewald of Johnson's Florist and Garden Center in Darnestown, but there are plants they won't eat if something tastier is available. "They have preferences just as we do."

It's more realistic, then, to think of these less-palatable-to-deer plants as the liver-and-onions plants deer pass by as they beeline to deer candy: azaleas, daylilies, hostas, ivy, roses, tulips, and yews. Where deer are a problem (and where aren't they?), consider installing plants they'd rather not eat.

Persian Allium Allium aflutanense

Persian allium shares a genus with strong-smelling, strong-tasting garlic and onions. One of the most spectacular of the spring flowering bulbs, Persian allium produces great cut flowers, purple four-inch balls atop stems that, under optimal conditions, reach over four feet tall.

Site: Plant bulbs in fall five inches deep and six inches apart in part to full sun.

TLC: Plant clusters of three to five bulbs in well-drained soil.

Variegated Eulalia Grass Miscanthus sinensis variegata

Deer avoid all forms of miscanthus as well as most other ornamental grasses. Not so the Sedum 'Autumn Joy.'

Site: Eulalia grass thrives in full sun.

TLC: Cut the grass back in late winter to about eight inches tall.

Lily of the Valley Shrub Pieris japonica

The common name comes from pendant creamy white March flowers. Slow-growing to six-feet-high and wide, pieris' dense, glossy dark green foliage forms a broad mound.

Site: Pieris blooms and prospers in rich, well-drained soil in semi-shade.

TLC: It's important to site them in moist shade. Avoid placement in full sun, says Tom Phillips of Phillips Landscaping, "or lacebugs will eat them up."

Peonies Paeonia

Peonies' big, lush, fragrant flowers are welcome sights in spring. The shrubby, two-foot-tall plants grow fuller and flower better every year.

Site: Plant peonies in sun to light shade in rich, well-drained soil.

TLC: Unfussy peonies respond to plentiful compost with luxuriant growth.

Lungwort Pulmonaria

Deer might sample lungwort's white, pink, or blue spring flowers, but they leave the hairy, semi-evergreen foliage alone. That's fine because fast-spreading lungworts are primarily foliage plants with a wide range of variegated and mottled forms.

Site: Planted in rich, moist soil with morning sun, lungworts multiply quickly

TLC: Remove spent foliage in late winter. Mulch and water in very dry summers.

Lenten Rose Helleborus xhybridus

"Hellebores are at the top of the list" of deer-resistant plants, says Peg Bier of Merrifield Garden Center in Fair Oaks. February to March flowers top a spectacular, 18-inch evergreen mound of poisonous, but elegant foliage.

Site: Lenten rose grows in part to full shade, blooming best with some sun.

TLC: "They're so promiscuous," says Bier. Provide rich soil and expect progeny.