67. A DEER-RESISTANT FLOWER GARDEN

In my part of the world, deer are rampant. They walk the streets of my village, unafraid. They munch on our front yard and backyard plants like a free buffet. This sad situation can make a plant lover sigh with resignation. But—with a little knowledge—you can have a lovely flower garden that deer avoid, or at least, not chew on.

Once you start to look, you can find many perennial and annual flowers that deer rarely or seldom damage. I use the term deer-resistant plant rather than deer-proof, because you never really know what deer will choose to eat. A few of my favorite deer-resistant perennials include Japanese wind anemones, astilbe, catmint, lavender, salvia, ornamental onion, bleeding heart, and coreopsis. They can be planted along with deer-resistant annuals, grasses, and ferns to make quite a show.

You can grow almost any plant if you install a tall, protective deer fence or apply deer sprays on the plants to make them unpalatable. But, in my mind, it is far easier (and less costly) to choose plants that deer don’t particularly like to eat. I note many deer-resistant flowers in this book. A great informative website source on deer-resistant plants is “Landscape Plants Rated by Deer Resistance,” developed by Rutgers University (njaes.rutgers.edu/deer-resistant-plants). It rates all types of landscape plants that grow in New Jersey, and similar hardiness zones, in several deer-resistant categories, from Rarely Damaged to Frequently Severely Damaged.

I created this overflowing flower border with an eye to deer resistance. The blue annual salvia, light pink annual vinca, dark pink lantana, and lavender-blue summer snapdragon are all deer resistant!

Lavender-blue flowers of ‘Walker’s Low’ catmint (Nepeta × faassenii ‘Walker’s Low’) and the upright purple flowers of the perennial ‘May Night’ salvia (Salvia nemorosa ‘May Night’) grab the eye in a curved flower border. Both are sun-loving perennials that are deer resistant and bloom in early summer. I chose them because their spike flowers combine well with the mounded, yellow-leaved deer-resistant shrub ‘Goldmound’ Japanese spirea. You can also insert some annuals to this scene. Try the low-growing, deer-resistant ‘Purple Gnome’ globe amaranth (Gomphrena globosa Gnome Purple) and the airy, white Diamond Frost® or Diamond Snow® euphorbia for color all summer.