If you love deer, and purposely garden to bring them into your yard, I'm going to apologize in advance. I hope my question doesn't rouse up some wild arguments about mistreating wildlife creatures. It's not my intent.
The little buggers eat too good in my garden! Once we get a good rainfall, I think the nibbling will lighten. But right now, I want to shoot the next one I catch eating my flowers! Bang!
Does anybody know if deer like to eat zinnias? Somebody has offered me seeds, and I don't want to accept unless I know they'll leave the seedlings & flowers alone. No sense in planting with hopes, just to see nibbled plant heads every morning.
Thanks,
Jennifer
Deer Prevention
If they are hungry enough they will eat zinnias. It's not a favorite, but if times are tough they will eat the seedlings and flowers. This list might help you find things that you can plant and stand a chance that they won't be gobbled up:
http://njaes.rutgers.edu/deerresistance/
That is an awsome, comprehensive list!
AngelSong,
DH put up an electric fence all the way around my flowerbeds and, believe it or not, it has kept them out of it. We have quite a herd that comes through our yard every night and they ate up a lot of my flowers before we put up the fence. Now I can plant anything I want.
Over on the Butterfly Forum, someone planted lots of flowers on her ranch. The deer ate all around the zinnias.
My Mom hangs little bags of Milorganite fertilizer from her trees too keep Deer from munching on them. Here's a some research on that. http://pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/pubcd/C889-1.htm
Here's another deer resistance plant list:
http://www.gardeningindeercountry.com/
We haven't tested for zinnias, but I am thinking about adding it to the study.
ROX
Canada here. The little "dears" wait until the night before a plant we have been waiting for to bloom and then they devour it. Our yard looks like a plant zoo with all the pretty shrubs, plants and flowers caged in but when the time is right they manage to remove the fencing and eat the pick of the day. As for only eating certain things in tough times forget it as they wiped out my rhubarb patch the night before I was going to store it for winter. There were lots of native bushes, lush lawn grass (no pesticide or fertilizer) and assorted flowers but that night they wanted rhubarb! My plan for this year is planting Daturas and Brugmansias, they are annuals here but hopefully I will have flowers the deer won't eat. The only solution to keep them out in this neighbourhood is 8 ft. or higher fences and the first grizzly that wanders through will destroy or make a hole in it just to see what is on the other side! I'd welcome ideas of what deer won't eat that has nice flowers. By the way last year they ignored the apple, cherry and plum trees but scalped the pear tree as high as they could reach. The year before the lilacs were naked - figure that out!
Check out the website; it has lots of flowering perennials. Tops on my list:
Digitalis
Aconitum
Veronica
Daffodils
Iris
Hellebores
Many salvia
ROX
Thanks. I am also working on a hedge along the fence lines around the yard; someone suggested that deer won't jump in if they can't see where they will land. I just want them out of our front yard but failing that I will settle for growing plants they shouldn't nibble on more than once. We live on the top of a small hill and there is a wildlife corridor at the bottom of the hillside and I guess we could put up an 8 ft. fence on three sides as the fourth side has a Wildlife fence protecting a farmer's hay field but that would cut off the corridor and they have to travel somewhere. I am willing to what I can to live in peace with the assorted wild animals in the area but I really want pretty flowers! A year ago we had a grizzly in the yard after supper one evening sampling the apples outside the patio door so this past Fall I picked all the fruit two weeks earlier and the grizzly just visited the neighbours' yards. :->
A grizzly. Wow.
Make sure you pick a hedge that deer don't eat. Privet works for me.
ROX
So far in this area the deer don't seem to eat Carragana (sp??). I have a row planted about 4 ft. inside our perimeter fence and I will trim it to a height of 4 ft. to start then later will let it get several feet taller.
In this immediate area grizzlies are a normal, black bears are rare cuz the grizzlies eat them given a chance. Thirty years ago it was the other way around but once the grizzlies started moving it they kept coming. After mid Aug. I could be fairly sure of showing you grizzlies within two days and not leave paved roads to do it.
We are near a summer home lake and the city folks bring their city pets out so now we have year round cougars as well - easy food since the dogs and cats have no idea what a cougar is. One sat for over an hour last summer on the side of a busy highway watching golfers at the local golf course. Coyotes and foxes are plentiful but seldom seen and there is a pack of wolves in the area but you have to be really really lucky to catch sight of them. Two kinds of deer, elk and moose are also regular yard ornaments. The last couple years wild turkeys come in around houses in the winter.
I live about 45 min. north of Eureka, MT.
Must be beautiful!!!
ROX
Typical Canadian Rockies scenery - mountains, trees, running water. We are about 30 miles from town east or west; which is good except in the winter and you need food or have an emergency. Most families have a 4X4 as highway maintenance isn't always good.
We live about half a mile down the road from a "summer home" lake and the city folks are always telling us what we are doing wrong. They provide us with a lot of entertainment like the time one family brought all their windfall apples on their lake side lawn for the deer, went home for the week, it froze, the apples fermented and they came back to a bear sleeping in their porch. They were very upset that the bear ate the apples that were for the deer - I suggested they put up a sign next time. Some of them run short on time on Sundays when they have to go back to the city and they leave their garbage in their cabin with a window open so the cabin doesn't smell too bad by the next weekend then wonder why a bear went in the window and trashed the place.
Does anyone know if deer will eat asparagus? I'm going to put in a bed and am wondering if I need to plan for a fence around it.