Deer Resistant Plants

Deer resistant plants is the focus of this article. Most animals love eating plants and deer is one of those. Deer can ruin the landscape once it gets into your yard and worse eat your plants. But, not all plants can be eaten by deer. If you’re in a place where deer is roaming around, it’s best to do some options to prevent the risk of damaging your landscape. You can opt to restrict access by building a fence or by applying repellents regularly.

Another way to prevent access into your yard is to cultivate deer resistant plants to ensure that this animal would not eat the plants. Thus, if you’re planning to cultivate the landscape you should know the plants that are seldom damage by deer. In fact, deer can damage trees by eating the twigs and foliage and rubbing their antlers against the bark. That’s why if you’ll plant trees choose those that are seldom damage by deer such as the following:

• Ginkgo
• Honey Locust
• American Holy
• Crape Myrtle
• Southern Magnolia
• Sweetbay Magnolia
• Pines

For evergreen shrubs you can choose the following:

• Century plants
• Wintergreen barberry
• Bottlebrush
• Eleagnus
• Pineapple guava
• Anise shrub
• Chinese Juniper

For deciduous shrubs:

• Japanese Barberry
• Butterflybush
• Blue Mist Shrub

Ornamental grasses are deer resistant plants thus it’s good to consider including them in the landscape. There are many kinds of ornamental grasses to choose from. Mostly are attractive, yet requires low maintenance while others are tough and long lived. They can be planted in volume to cover the ground and they offer nice distinction to shrubs. Here are the ornamental grasses that are also deer resistant plants:

• Korean feather reed grass
• River oats
• Pampas grass
• Maiden grass
• Pink muhly grass
• Blue Muhly grass
• Panic grass
• Fountain grass
• Indian grass

Ferns

Deer rarely damage fern foliage that’s why they are great addition to your landscape because deer wouldn’t eat them. Ferns can be used as ground cover and look attractive when combined with perennials and shrubs.

Ornamental herbs

Another option of deer resistant plants are ornamental herbs. Deer avoids these plants because of the strong fragrances. That’s why if your landscape is prone to deer damage you should consider planting perennial herbs that also makes the landscape attractive including the following:

• Thyme
• Fennel
• Sage
• Chives
• Oregano
• Mint marigold
• Tansy
• Anise Hyssop
• Southern wood
• Mexican oregano
• Spanish or French lavender
• Lavender cotton

Bulbs

Another type of plants that you can include in your landscape are the bulbs. There are bulbs that are considered as deer resistant and it’s good to choose them such as spring blooming perennials like:

• Daffodils
• Summer snowflake
• Amaryllis
• Scillas
• Ornamental onions
• Crinum lilies
• Crocosmias
• Oxalis
• Colchicum
• Hardy cyclamen

On the other hand, if you want to include those plants that are prone to deer damage, the least thing that you can do is to consider implementing zoning in your landscape. This option allows you to separate the plants that are deer prone to be planted in places that you can easily manage when deer intrudes your landscape. As long as you know the deer resistant plants to choose, there’s no reason for you not to develop your landscape the way you want it.