The words and icon for “deer resistant” seem to be as ubiquitous on plant labels and in catalogs as “gluten free” is on packaged food.

I had not worried about deer browsing since I sold my Coweta County farm a few years ago.  Actually, it was many years ago.  Rutting season was more harmful to my newly planted trees than the occasional browsing.  Now I have a fully developed garden in Highlands, North Carolina, brimming with landscape design ideas, where I often bragged to lowlanders about the delights of not having deer at 4000 feet elevations. Alas, Bambi and friends are now travelling to Highlands. One bright February day I looked up from my breakfast to see deer in my apple orchard. Distressed, I drove home to Atlanta where I felt quite smug in the belief that deer would not bother us in the city. Now Bambi and friends have discovered city life and the menus of city gardens. Bambi was happy with the Buckhead, Georgia landscapes. But I wasn’t happy to provide all the meals.

Last week I was driving through Buckhead admiring our well kept gardens and landscape designs and what Tom Wolfe called “heaving bosoms of green lawns” in his book, Man In Full when a lovely young deer lept across the road in front of my car. Bambi and friends had just left our client’s garden after enjoying a meal of Hosta albo marginata, not a deer proof plant. Nor is hydrangea, roses, and aucuba. Remember to strike these from your own landscape design ideas if your yard sees deer. It pays to plan accordingly. We don’t need to be the local cafe to the animals around.
The UGA Center for Urban Agriculture has a good list of deer resistant plants. We find boxwoods, hellebores, daffodils, alliums and most herbs to be very unappealing to deer. It’s worth considering such plants when contemplating landscape design ideas. Thus far they are not eating azaleas in Atlanta. I am not going to brag about that now.

-Marcia

 

Want more back and front yard landscaping ideas? See our post on pruning and Bonsai.