Deer Resistant Bedding Plants
- Plant experts at North Carolina State University Cooperative Extension suggest looking for bedding plants with specific qualities that deer tend to avoid. In general, deer do not prefer prickly plants, plants with hairy leaves, plants that have thorns, herbs and other plants with very pungent smells or incredibly strong tastes, poisonous plants and plants with very thick sap.
- American holly grows in the southeastern U.S., produces attractive red berries, has decorative shiny green leaves and is incredibly rare plant for deer to eat. Deer also avoid bottlebrush buckeye. Some evergreen conifers that deer rarely damage include white fir and Colorado spruce. Deer rarely damage Japanese flowering cherry trees, which are extremely popular bedding plants because of their decorative pink blossoms during the spring.
- Since deer do not like incredibly pungent tastes or smells, they avoid certain herbs even though they are edible. Some herbs that deer avoid include dill, rosemary, lavender, oregano, thyme, anise, horseradish, mint and chives.
- Landscapers often choose flowering plants as bedding plants that add some color and fragrance to a garden. Some perennial flowers that deer do not eat include the lenten rose, lily of the valley, cinquefoil, Chinese peony, periwinkle, daffodil, bleeding heart, foxglove, tulip and iris. Some annual flowers that deer avoid include the sweet alyssum, strawflower, spider flower, poppy, begonia, petunia and pot marigold.
- Landscapers often also look for attractive ground covers and accent plants to use as bedding plants in a garden. Some ground covers that deer avoid include ivy, Allegheny spurge, barrenwort, bearberry, bugleweed, creeping mahonia, cape honeysuckle and Japanese wisteria. Deer do not prefer to eat decorative switchgrass, fountain grass, giant reed grass or golden bamboo, all of which make useful grassy accent plants. They also avoid the shrubs quince, Oregon grape holly, golden currant, boxwood and blueberry elder.