Dealing With Deer In The Garden

Good luck! If you live in an area with any significant herd, it is a constant battle. Since LoneWillow Farm is located in rural West Virginia in an area with open hay fields and pasture, we are familiar with the problem. It is not unusual to drive the 4 miles from the main highway to the farm and see 50 deer. I'll share my experience (I'm trying to keep them out of an area about an acre in size) and a list of plants that may help.

A big roaming dog can help a lot but I've never had one. I had a little spunky one that help some but he too ended up sleeping on the porch while the deer browsed. For a number of years I had fairly good results with repellents (I favor Hinder) if I applied it diligently. But after a while it became less effective. I'm not sure if this was due to the deer becoming used to it or just more of them. I moved on to keeping them out of selected areas with flagging and electric fence. It's not hard to protect a small area by creating an enclosed space since the deer won't usually jump into an area like this though it tends to be ugly.

What I am using now is a combination of 7.5 ft. invisible deer fence for about a third to half of the area and baited electric fence for the rest. The electric fence is 2 strands (1 may be enough) with peanut butter or molasses applied randomly alone the wire. An upgrade is to wrap aluminum foil around the wire at points and use that for the bait. The idea here is to shock the deer thus training them to stay out of an area. They could easily jump over this but their curiosity and appetite gets the best of them and the REALLY don't like being shocked. In the open area at the driveway I use the battery power baited wands that do the same thing - Wireless Deer Fence I believe they are called. I've had pretty good luck for the last couple years. I don't try to keep the deer out of the area year round. Most of it comes down in the winter but then hunting season starts....

Below is a list of plants that tend to be deer resistant - maybe, most of the time, if you're lucky. As you know, if deer are hungry enough and food scarce enough most every plant is on their menu. Hence deer resistant not deer proof - they chewed on the yucca after 2 months of snow cover. You can see a list of all the Deer Resistant Plants or check out the individual plants below.

Achillea - the gray fuzzier leaf varieties are best
Aconitum - irritant maybe poisonous
Agastache
Ajuga
Amsonia tabermaemontona -irritating sap
Artemisia -Wormwood  reported to be a repellent also
Asclepias tuberosa - milkweed sap probably unappealing
Anemone
Aquilegia
Arisaema Triphyllum - irritant
 Baptista australis - irritant
 Bergenia cordifolia 'Winterglut' - waxy leaves
 Boltonia 'Snowbank' 
Buddleia - imagine again it is the fuzziness
Calamintha nepeta 
Campanula
Centaurea - fuzzy leaves
Convallaria majalis 
Coreopsis - they will occasionally pull my young plants out of the ground
Dianthus - waxy leaves
Dicentra
Digitalis - maybe affect their heart rate
Echinacea - prickly leaves
Echinops 'Blue Glow'  - same
Ferns - frond texture seems to protect this entire group of plants
Gaillardia 'Fanfare' - fuzzy leaves
Geranium- strong scent in some species and residual oder in others
Grass - this group also seems to be unappealing to deer
Helenium 'Red Army' 
Helleborus - irritating sap
Inula magnifica - prickly leaves
Iris- tough sword-like leaves are unappealing though some reports of bud lose.
Lavandula - strong scent keeps them away.
Lychnis coronaria - again fuzzy leaves
Monarda- strong scent
Nepeta - strong scent
Oenothera
Paeonia - waxy leaves keep them away
Perovskia atriplicifolia - strong scent
Platycondon 
Pulmonaria
Stachys - really fuzzy leaves
Most of the Medicinal & Aromatic herb are avoided by deer because of their strong scent or irritants
Many of the Culinary Herbs make good landscape plants and are too pungent for deer in particular Rosemary - Arp, Sage - Purple, or a one of the less hardy sage - Sage - Mexican Bush or Sage - Pineapple