Deer Resistant Native Plants for Lake Caroline 

 

Deer will eat anything if hungry enough. They tend to return to gardens where they felt safe eating yummy tender plants, especially those that hold moisture in their stems and leaves like impatiens and pansies. Deer are extra hungry when foaling in spring and early summer. This can be frustrating as we’ve waited all winter for our young plants to re-emerge and the tender green shoots are just yummy for deer.

 

Hairy, thorny, tough stemmed, leathery, stinky plants are low on their list. However, most armored plants don’t start out that way. They develop their defenses over time. In nature, certain plants are plentiful, so some can be eaten and some can survive. Native plants have developed over centuries alongside local insects and fauna, to provide nutritious food and appropriate shelter.

 

Protecting tender vegetation until it can withstand the nibbling isn’t always attractive either. Chicken wire baskets and fences don’t exactly scream garden of the month. But there are other ways to protect the plants. Pungent odoriferous plants interspersed among your favored plants can be an attractive deterrent. Wild garlic (Allium vineale) and wild onions (Allium canadense) are unobtrusive and have dainty creamy spring flowers. Because they emit their odors when trampled, often deer will leave before sampling anything else. They reproduce by little bulblets, so watch how they spread. However, once your preferred plants have matured, the alliums will either be shaded out or can be dug up and moved elsewhere.

 

Bald cypress doesn’t taste or smell good, so the bald cypress leaf litter (not bark!) used as a mulch is a great deterrent. Unfortunately, if you have any pets, it will get all tangled up in their fur.

 

Having said all of this, the native plants LEAST preferred by deer are:

 

• Coneflowers – which include purple coneflowers (Echinacea), black-eyed susans (Rudbeckia), Mexican hat flowers (Ratibida).
• Sunflowers
• Most native shrubs such as Viburnum (Viburnum) with leathery leaves and Holly (Ilex) with sharp leaves, American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), Red Buckeye (Aesculus pavia), Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana), Wax Myrtle (Myrica cerifera) and Witch hazel (Hamamelis) will deter deer browsing.
• Bee balms (Monarda)
• Milkweeds (Asclepius) have a milky sap that is very unappetizing and poisonous to most creatures, only the Monarch caterpillar is able to manage it.
• Ferns (Polystichum acrostichoides, Osmunda cinnamomea. O. regalis, Ococlea sinsibilis, Adiantum pedatum)
• Columbine (Aquilegia)
• Coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens)
• Ornamental grasses such as Pink Muhly grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris), Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), Bottlebrush grass (Elymus hystrix), Purple lovegrass (Eragrostis spectabilis) and Prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis).
• Mountain Mints (Pycnanthemum) and Salvias, most anything with a square, tough stem.
• Asters (Pycnanthemum)
• Cactii (Cactaceae)
• Mallow hibiscus (Hibiscus leave, H. coccineus, H. moscheutos, H. grandifloras)
• Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria, C. lanceolata)
• Rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccafolium, E. aquaticum)
• Junipers (Juniperus virginiana and J. communis)
• Hawthorn (Crataegus) trees are too thorny for deer, often produce fruit for birds, and are beautiful in spring when their leaves bud out and the dainty white flowers bloom.

If you are building or renovating a new garden bed in your home landscape, try to incorporate some of these natives. Protect them as they get started, so they can grow into their deer defenses.

 

-Nell Howard, Park Committee

Questions? nelliebell232@gmail.com