I was out in the front garden early this morning to take photos of my blooming Ornamental Grasses when my deer pals decided to see what I was doing. Unfortunately, our deer are fairly tame because of others feeding them so they'll almost walk up to you.
By experimentation, we've determined what our Black-tailed Deer will sometimes test, but not eat.
This is a newer Purple Fountain Grass that we put in a pot last year.
This picture shows more of my grasses, plus Oleanders which bloom often. We also have Torch Lilies, also known as Red Hot Pokers (which the hummingbirds just love) a huge Miscanthus and Iris-all deer resistant.
Lovely garden ducbucin! Great pics of the deer.
Duc, I have to tell my sister about the ornamental grasses. She claims she grow anything because of the deer.
Once walking around her property I found a Torch Lily growing. Now, I know she didn't plant it. She's
in Grass Valley.
I just love all your deer pictures.
I have a mager problem here with deer eating everything mostly the small trees I planted last year they ate a tulip poplar in half. They must have reached to get a leaf and pulled and broke the tree in half it was about 6' tall. Then they ate my mimosa and a royal empress the empress has been eaten to the ground 4 times. I found out that if I don't leave the gate open on my garden they will not go in over the fence so that helped after they ate all my cukes and okra. I have planted a couple patches of rye and clover for them to see if they would eat it and leave everything else alone I have seen some sign of them eating it but not much.Between the deer and coons and snow when it shouldn't have my yard is a full time job. All my citrus trees are bare I covered them for the snow but not good enough. I try to live with the animals here and we have a lot deer ducks rabbits even an alligator and sometimes river otters and even a goose was here this year for a couple of weeks. BUT I am getting frustrated. I can't fence in the whole yard because I live on a lake and would have to put a fence on the shore.Which would mess up my fishing. I am looking into plants they don't like. Onamental grass sounds good I bought a bunch of lantana. Does anyone know of anything else they don't like?
You can fence the small trees, just to keep the deer back until they are big enough to survive the occaisional scratching or leaf-grazing. I don't know how much aesthetics you need, but just tposts and landscape mesh.
Supposedly "Deer tend to avoid plants with aromatic foliage, tough leathery and/or hairy or prickly leaves or plants with milky latex or sap". You can put them around the outside, and the deer won't bother to push through to find the tastier materials. The Native Plant Society of Texas has listing of these sorts, http://www.npsot.org/plant_lists/deer_resistant.html and there are some additional lists from, although note that they aren't all appropriate for your climate.
A lot (all? surely not) of the native grasses are deer-resistent. They have tougher stalks and seeds, so I think the deer would just rather go eat your neighbors' bermuda. So there's all kinds of nifty landscaping you can do with them. It kind of just depends on your taste as to which are the most attractive - I like the ones that have big seedheads, sideoats grama and western wheatgrass and such, but some people like the more feathery like muhly. Some are pretty short like lawn grass, and some grow as tall as a person. (Lots of nice seedy grass will help attract birds, too.) http://www.wildflower.org/collections/collection.php?collection=deer has a whole bunch of deer resistant species, which you can narrow down by where you are and what sort of thing you're looking for.
It's a challenge, but it's an opportunity, too. Let us know what you try and how it turns out.
Pretty cool that you have a lakeshore! (I wonder if the deer are coming to drink? Would it help to put a fence, with a gate further in to the yard, so that they could come and go for water without stopping to eat?)
Wow thanx for the great info and links I 'm gonna look into the info and see what I can do. I don't like stuff like pampas grass its kina invasive. And I have thought of planting holly bushes all around the yard. I have about 2.75 acres here so thats a lot of planting. The deer swim across the lake from the penninsula that protects my property from the worst wind and water. I have been sitting out fishing and seeen as many as 5 deer swim across the lake and come up on my shore. I do plan on putting fencing around the trees I need to protect as you suggested. I had 82 pines cut off this property because I got sick of all the pine straw and pine cones and spending hour picking up pine branches before I could mow. I also had all the stumps ground and wound up with a ton of wood chip mulch. Now I am trying to plant nicer trees. Like the tulip tree and I have some Strawberry trees they are loaded with thorns and the deer still ate the leaves. I am also planting Orchid trees ,dogwoods, red bud. Golden Raintree, and lot of crepe mertyl some these trees I started from seed and some I got from the Arbor Society. I have also had luck starting flowering maples from seeds. I have a green house thatI had to enclose the ends on because the deer just walked through eating what ever they wanted like my Tomato starts. Also I found several flowers that they just love like impatients.Oh well thanx again for the info. Living on a lake is nice but right after I moved here I had 4 foot of water in the house from the flood of 94 since then its been better.
Rucky, my deer will sample everything I put in the garden, but they don't care for the Oregon Grape Holly which is green most of the year, but turns red in the fall. They also dislike the lavender, rosemary, iris or yucca plants.
As for trees, they don't touch the Manzanita trees that are native to our area.
Oh eek! No not pampas grass. Scary! Us native grasses. I used to live in central Florida when the developers were in the habit of putting that stuff along the front of every development. I was so traumatized that I rejected even the concept of ornamental grass for years. I still feel pretty hesitant about the big ones, but those species belong, invasiveness at least isn't an issue.
lol It's like a Disney movie, the deer bringing their friends to eat at your waterfront restaurant/greenhouse. Maybe you need more alligators... Good luck!
haha you are right about the pampas don't want it or more alligators. I will look into the mansanita trees I am planting as many different kinds of trees as I can find. I am also going with some natives like red leaf maple and sycamore in fact I have about 15 sycamores to plant this year.The deer don't mess with them at all. They do however eat the red leaf maples they got two in the yard and three in the greenhouse
I have found that they don't like any of the herbs planted in the garden like ducbucin mentioned. they won't mess with my mustard greens either they walked right past them to eat the leaves off of a forsythia bush.
They have stood in the front yard facing the road and ate all the leaves as high as they can reach off of my huge Hybiscus plants you know its deer because they are nice enough to leave some fertilizer on the ground for me and believe it or not they actually ate a wax leaf ligustrum that I was going to take out anyway.
I feel your pain with the deer. We suffer from white tailed deer and have yet to find what they really don't like. I do know they like sunflowers when the sunflowers are early in their growth. I have experimented with jalapeno peppers ground in the blender and soaked in water and sprayed on things and that may have been partially successful.
We have had a few year problem with "things" eating our peas and beans--maybe either rabbits or deer. We found that which ever the guilty animal(s) was did not bother the peas and beans that we had planted in a row immediately adjacent to turnips. We are trying this technique again this year to see it it works. We are also planting more and more marigolds throughout the garden to see if this impedes the critters.
Good Luck,
Salsadude
Marigolds Thats an excellent idea I'll plant some. They won't go in the garden if I keep the gate closed. They will push the gate open and go in so now I have a bungie cord holding it shut and my wife and I reprimand each other for not latching it.I just tore out a couple of large flower beds in the front took out some 15 year old yuccas ( never plant them where you might have to remove them the biggest stump was 5' across) I am going back with some Hibiscus trees and will plant deer resistant plants all around them because the deer ate them in the green house last year. Luckily Lantana grows really good here and last year I bought some cheep ($1 a gallon) so I bought a bunch and some flowering sage I am also going to plant some Rosemary bushes and some pineapple sage. they smell and look good together and the deer don't seem to like them. I built a fence around my Royal Empress and its doing good I also have encourages some of the neighbors dogs into the yard to walk aroung and mark a few things and so far I have only see a few signs of them in the yard. The brouse patches I planted were untouched so I mowed them down. I really don't understand why they didn't eat the brouse it had oats and rye grass but no eveidence of them going near it. I put in a new strawbale garden and I have the stuff to fence it off just got to work in the time to put it up.I an am retired and don't know how I ever found time to work I have a full time job here........rucky
