What are the best flowers to plant where deer are frequent "visitors"?
by
Keren
+16
We have just purchased a home in the Pacific NW. I love flowers, birds, and vegetable gardens. We want to have a garden that is inviting to birds, butterflies and lady bugs but yet allows us to produce vegetables and fruit for ourselves. We have deer in the neighborhood also, so we plan to make raised garden beds with deer proof netting and plant deer resistant plants where possible in the landscape.
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Daffodils, foxgloves, and poppies are common flowers that have a toxicity that deer avoid. Deer also turn their noses up at fragrant plants with strong scents. Herbs such as sages, ornamental salvias, and lavenders, as well as flowers like peonies and bearded irises, are just “stinky” to deer.
https://www.almanac.com/content/deer-resistant-plants
Butterfly bush, rhododendrons, camelias, hydrangeas, azaleas, lilac my deer don't eat, I have quite a few hardy fushias they do eat a bit, they mostly like the lawn grass. Never heard of any netting detering deer, unless its wire screening.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhxy5eGG4o0 My 6' fence doesn't stop them, I'm more worried about the two-legged Oregon tweakers.
Try liquid fence if you want to keep them out.... http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2015/06/homemade-liquid-fence-recipe.html
deer resistant plants.... http://extension.oregonstate.edu/deschutes/sites/default/files/deer_resistant_plants_ec.pdf
Go down or contact nearest Garden or Plant Centre and see what they advise for your area..........
https://www.bhg.com/gardening/gardening-by-region/pacific-northwest/deer-busters-the-top-deer-resistant-plants-for-the-pacific-northwest-/
I have tried many things to keep the deer off my plants. The sprays you can buy are costly and are only as good as the weather. I purchased those strobe light things with some high pitch sounds... Expensive and batteries are always dying and they don't deter the deer, don't waste your money. I agree with others that planting flowers that they don't like is the best thing, but they love any food you would eat. If it is possible to build a fence around food, you can hope that will work, keeping other plant eaters out also.
Contact your local extension office and they should have plants tailored to your area.
I have had luck with my irises and the wisconsin deer. They don't seem to like them.
In our area, deer head for hydrangeas first. Absolutely love them!
The problem with garden centers telling you deer don't llike some particular plant is that deer don't read the same books. Even if there is a plant deer don't like, every year all the baby deer have to eat that plant out of everyone's yard before they decide, "yeah mom knows best, deer don't like that plant." We use black plastic netting around cedar hedges, hydrangeas, other things we want to protect. They don't chew the netting, and don't shove through it. The garden center is likely right when they point you to netting. I am in the Pacific Northwest x 30 yrs.
You can also purchase an item that attaches to a hose and if a deer or other animal comes near it sprays water out. We had to use one for a while because we had an outdoor cat coming to our patio and gazing in at my two house cats. My two house cats would go crazy running around the house, fighting and then spraying the patio window. I felt that the outdoor cat getting a bath was the most humane way to solve my problem and it did.
you are welcome!
I have read that deer are not attracted to LAVENDER.
Iris!! Deer hate anything that is not smooth on their mouth. I live in CO & we have an over population of deer! They will not even touch the Iris & they come back year after year. I have researched deer problem a lot!!
This is truly great news. Iris is my absolute favorite flower!
Thank you for sharing your experience.