All posts by Jan Nelson

I am a landscape designer and consultant in the Santa Cruz mountains in California. I write a weekly gardening column for the Press Banner newspaper. I am also a Calif. Advanced Certified Nursery Professional and managed The Plantworks Nursery in Ben Lomond, Ca. for 20 years.
Design trends

Fragrant Plants in the Summer Garden

Intensely fragrant dianthus attract butterflies and hummingbirds and are deer resistant.

While hiking recently in Oregon I encountered many Mock Orange ( Philadelphus lewisii ) growing near the Jackson Creek. Their scent was noticeable from a long way off. I knew they grew in the area and their scent gave them away. They are native here also. Easy to grow and make a stunning addition to any garden.

Star jasmine are in full bloom now. I definitely need one. Their lovely scent is one of my favorites and the flowers bloom last for a long time. You might grow one as a shrub, a ground cover or on a trellis as a vine.

Lavender has to be the superstar of fragrant plants. With vibrant purple blooms and intoxication fragrance, this Mediterranean perennial knows how to steal the show. The scent is calming and often used in meditation eye pillows. It’s a magenta for bees and butterflies adding an extra touch of magic to your garden.

Citrus blossoms can really scent the air. You can smell them for miles around a citrus orchard. Whether you choose lemons, oranges, mandarins, kumquats, grapefruit or limes you can’t go wrong with a citrus plant. Established trees need a deep irrigation every other week so keep them on a separate watering system from your other edibles.

Inside the veggie garden, include scented plants that attract beneficial insects. Fragrant lavender and sweet alyssum are good choices. For sheer enjoyment, plant perennial carnation and dianthus for their intense clove fragrance. Cinnamon Red Hots grow to 15 inches, are deer resistant, bloom all spring and summer and don’t need deadheading. Velvet and White border carnations are among the least demanding and most satisfying perennials in the garden. As cut flowers they are long lasting and highly fragrant in bouquets.

Roses are a classic addition to any garden. A timeless symbol of beauty and love for that sunny spot in your garden. Every season growers introduce more fragrant varieties that are disease resistant, too, which is a needed attribute given our wet springs.

If you’re looking for a plant with an irresistible vanilla scent try heliotrope. Their deep violet flowers are beautiful and worth replanting each year if hit by frost. The flowers are reminiscent of freshly baked sugar cookies.

If you crave an intense, exotic fragrance in your garden, gardenias are the epitome of elegance. These evergreen shrubs are easy to grow if given rich soil and the right amount of light. If you’ve had bad luck before with a gardenia, they are worth another try.

And then there’s honeysuckle. Some like Hall’s are quite vigorous while others are more well-behaved. I like ‘Goldflame’ with it’s extremely fragrant deep rose-pink flowers with yellow centers. Honeysuckle are hummingbird magnets and who doesn’t want more of these little beauties in their garden?

Fragrance in flowers is nature’s ways of encouraging pollination. Just as it draws you to take a deeper whiff, it lures insects to blossoms hidden by leaves. Some flowers are fragrant only at night and attract night-flying pollinators like moths, while others are more fragrant during the day and attract insects like bees and butterflies.

The Santa Cruz Mountains offer a diverse range of climate and microclimates , so consider the specific conditions of your garden when selecting plants. Happy gardening and may your garden be filled with the sweetest scents nature has to offer.

Design trends

Outsmarting Deer

Coneflowers (echinacea) are usually safe from deer browsing due to their hairy stems and leaves and bitter taste but not always.

So you’ve planted only “deer resistant” plants but last night your coneflowers were eaten. You’ve been waiting all season to cut some for a bouquet. What else can you do to save your flowers from thirsty deer? Here are some techniques that may help. They are worth a try.

A Facebook friend posts photos taken of her yard with lots of turkeys and deer families. How can you not love a picture of those cute fawns covered with spots?

At this time of year last year’s youngsters are being chased away by their deer mothers. In heavily wooded areas their territory may be only the square mile right around where they were born and since they eat about 5 pounds of food per day which would fill a large garbage bag, your garden is this year’s smorgasbord. Eating mostly semi-woody plants they supplement this with soft foliage and, as we all know, our beloved flowers. They browse, moving from place to place seeking plants that taste good and have a high protein content. Knowing their habits can be your advantage. Don’t let them make a habit of eating in your garden. Employ some of the following techniques before they print out a menu of your plants.

There are many barriers you can use to keep deer out of your garden like mesh fencing, deer netting, chicken wire or fishing line. Two short fences a few feet apart can also keep them out. Frightening devices that hook up to your hose work well, too. But if you can’t fence your area then the following tips may help.

Protect young fruit and nut trees by encircling the trunk with fencing to a height of 6 ft. You can remove it after the tree has grown taller and can be limbed up.

Plant deer resistant plants as well as plants that deter deer. Make sure deer find the entryway to your garden unattractive. Concentrate deer repelling plants here. Highly fragrant plants jam the deers’ predator-alert sensors and make them uneasy. Try planting catmint, chives, lavender, sage, society garlic, thyme or yarrow around your favorite plants that they usually eat and you may have better luck this year.

Jam their senses with repellents like fermented eggs solids, mint, rosemary oil and garlic, You can buy these ready-to-use or in concentrates and are very effective. The idea is that you spray directly on the plants and the surrounding area two weeks in a row and then afterwards monthly. They stay on the plants through the rain but keeping it fresh during the peak spring browsing period and late summer when deer are thirsty is a good idea. Soap bars are effective for small areas for short periods. You would have to use 450 bars per acre for a large area. Deer get used to the smell of hair real quick and so it isn’t effective for very long either. Blood meal and sprays are effective also but can attract predators.

Taste repellents must be sprayed directly on the plants you want to protect and don’t use them on food plants. You can buy hot pepper spray or mix it yourself: 2 tablespoons hot pepper sauce, 1 gal water, 1 tablespoon liquid dish soap. Another spray you can make up yourself: 5 tablespoons cayenne pepper, 1 tablespoon cooking oil, 1 gal water.

My personal list of deer resistant plants that are flourishing in the shade are philodendron selloum, all ferns, liriope, mondo grass, Queen’s Tears hardy bromeliad, aspidistra or cast iron plant, bamboo in containers, podocarpus, carex grass, Japanese maple, fragrant sarcococca, clivia, calla lily, sago palm. douglas iris and hellebore.

There are many deer resistant plants for the sun, too. The main thing is to start using one or several of these ideas now before deer establish their feeding grounds.

Design trends

Living with Deer

With their hairy leaves, Black-eyed Susan’s are usually avoided by deer.

With those big brown doe eyes and the cute fawns who doesn’t enjoy seeing deer, as long as they’re not in your yard. Around my place they only visit very occasionally which is the worst as I forget they might come at any time and don’t spray on a regular basis. My ornamental sunflower buds were munched and that reminds me, it’s time to spray.

I spray with Squirrel Stopper (I have a squirrel problem, too) as it’s similar to some of the deer repellents with rosemary oil, corn mint oil, putrescent eggs solids and cinnamon oil but doesn’t smell as bad as some of the deer repellents. I don’t need to spray the zinnias, cosmos or Black-eyed Susan’s but they really loved the agapanthus flowers.The hummingbirds were devastated. Picky deer, I guess. But are there any other safe plants that deer seem to avoid?

If you have a resident deer population you can still have a beautiful garden. Recently I dropped by a garden that I designed to see how it was doing. When I arrived one big buck bounded out of the main garden and another leaped out of a side section when it saw me. I was pleasantly surprised that the plant palette that I chose wasn’t even nibbled a tiny bit. I don’t know what they were doing in the garden but it wasn’t eating any flowers or foliage. Deer don’t read those lists and their taste varies with the season but I can personally vouch for Achillea ‘Coronation Gold’, Russian sage, leucospermum, asparagus ‘Myer’, Kangaroo Paw, Fortnight Lily, Radiant manzanita, Mt Tamboritha grevillea and lantana.

There are native plants that are poisonous for us but only some of them are avoided by deer. It got me thinking. How do deer eat poisonous plants without apparent ill effect?

Deer are browsers. They thrive on a mixed diet. You’ve seen them eat a few roses then saunter over to the abutilon and then on to the daylily flowers. Deer will eat almost anything, even plants with a strong scent like catmint, lavender or thyme when they are hungry or need water. They can even eat a few bites of various toxic plants.

According to Tom Hanley, a wildlife biologist with the Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, “There seems to be threshold levels for the toxicity of different plants, and as long as deer eat below that threshold, they’re okay.” Plant toxicity varies with the time of year also and flowers may be less toxic than leaves or roots. They just mix it up.

That explains the eating habits of deer but what about us?

Many of us are including native plants in our landscapes to attract wildlife and save water and resources. Here are some common native plants that you should be aware of if you have small children. This list comes from
Borstein, Foss and O’Brian- California Native plants for the Garden.

Coffeeberry- leaves, berries and bark
California buckeye- all parts (poisonous to bees also)
Western azalea- all parts
Elderberry- all parts except ripe berries and fruit
Solanum-all parts
Snowberry-berries
California buttercup- juice of the plant
Berberis- roots and leaves
Prunus ( cherry )- seeds
California poppy- all parts
Lupine (annual)- seeds, fresh leaves and stems.

Mostly though, native plants make great additions to the garden. They tend to be well behaved and are rarely invasive. Birds and butterflies rely on them for food, shelter and nesting. And best of all they are beautiful.
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When I’m designing with native plants I find the following plants are fairly safe around deer. They are not perfectly safe at all times of the year but they are usually avoided.

Artemisia also called Ca. sagebrush
Asarum – Wild ginger
Baccharis – Dwf coyote brush
Ceanothus ‘Julia Phelps’
Eriogonum – Ca. buckwheat
Douglas iris
Mimulus auritanicus – Sticky monkey flower
Monardella – Coyote mint
Ribes speciosum – Fuchsia-flowering gooseberry
Salvia

Enjoy your garden. Let the deer browse elsewhere and be aware of plants that may be toxic to children.
Next week I’ll give you some good techniques that help deter deer.