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Dealing with

Deer in Your Garden:

What to Know and How to Protect Your Plants

Deer can easily devastate a garden, but a little understanding of their habits can go a long way. Understanding what deer look for (and what they avoid) can help you make strategic plant choices. Deer show distinct preferences when it comes to browsing. Knowing their favorite textures can help you plan your landscape:

The Favorites: Deer adore plants that are soft to the touch with high water content (like Hostas), as well as tender new flower buds and evergreen shrubs like Rhododendrons.
The Deterrents: They generally avoid plants with coarse, bristly, fuzzy, or spiny textures, and they naturally steer clear of plants with intense aromas.

*Note: If deer are hungry enough, they will eat just about anything!
Signs of Deer Damage
Because deer lack upper incisors, they don't leave a clean cut when they browse. Instead, they leave behind rough, jagged tears on stems and foliage, a telltale sign they’ve been to your property for dinner. While browsing happens year-round, the heaviest pressure always occurs from October through February, especially during challenging winter months when wild food sources are scarce.

*Black Chokeberry, a deer resistant native shrub*

Forget Me Nots & Bleeding Hearts are both deer resistant plants.

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Control & Prevention

How to Deter Deer

No garden is completely deer-proof, even known "deer-resistant" varieties are highly vulnerable during their first few weeks in the ground. New plants are often lush from nursery care, making them an irresistible target. There are several highly effective techniques you can use to protect your landscape. Combining a few of these methods will yield the best results:

Commercial Repellents: If you struggle with heavy deer pressure, we highly recommend spraying vulnerable plants & shrubs and newly installed plants with a deer repellent for 3 to 4 weeks after planting. This breaks their browsing habit and gives the plants time to establish. Products containing a mixture of dried bovine blood, sulfured eggs, or garlic are incredibly effective because they target both a deer's sense of smell and taste. These organic sprays will not harm your plants and are available at Vineyard Gardens.
Strategic Plant Placement: Design your garden beds with deer behavior in mind. Place heavily scented, fuzzy leaved or poisonous plants on the outer perimeter of your gardens to act as a natural barrier, hiding the more tempting, delicate plants on the inside.
Choose Unpalatable Varieties: Fill your landscape with beautiful plants that deer naturally dislike. Excellent options include Lilac, Lavender, Marigolds, Zinnias, Daffodils, and Snapdragons. Stop by our nursery, and our staff can help you pick out the perfect deer-resistant combinations for your specific yard.
The Soap Method: For a quick home remedy, try scattering or hanging heavily scented bars of soap (like Irish Spring) around the perimeter of your garden beds. Leaving the wrappers on helps the soap endure rain and last a bit longer.
Install Protective Fencing: When deer pressure is severe, a physical barrier is the most reliable long-term solution. To truly keep deer from jumping into your yard, a fence must be at least 8 feet tall. While a solid 8-foot metal fence is highly effective, it can become quite expensive. As a fantastic, low-profile alternative, we sell a black vinyl deer fencing at the nursery that blends beautifully into the landscape while keeping your plants entirely safe.

Fortunately, even if a plant gets nibbled on, it will typically survive and recover beautifully as long as its root system remains healthy and undamaged.

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DEER RESISTANT ANNUALS

Calendula Bon Bon mix. A dwarf Calendula. Blooms all summer in full sun or part shade.

DEER RESISTANT ANNUALS

Acroclinum (Paper Flower)
Ageratum
Angelonia: Dwarf Serena, tall Angelonias and our favorite tall one is the Angel Face Series
Bachelor Buttons (Corn Flowers)
Bracteantha (Strawflower)
Brugmansia
Calendula (Angel's Trumpets)
Cleome (Spider Flowers)
Cosmos sulphureus: Cosmos Xanthos,Cosmos Apricotta and our new Cosmos Diablo
Datura (Trumpet Flower)
Delphinium (Larkspur)
Dusty Miller (Silver Ragwort)
Euphorbia marginatá ‘Snow on the Mountain’

Geraniums (Crane's Bill)
Geraniums (scented)
Gomphrena (Globe amaranth)
Gypsophila (Baby's Breath)
Heliotropium (Heliotrope)
Herbs (annuals): cilantro / parsley / dill / chervil / lemon grass / lavender / lemon verbena / marjoram
Lantana
Limonium (Statice) (Sea lavenders)
Lobularia maritima (Alyssum)
Papaver (Poppies)
Salvias
Tagetes (Marigolds)