{"id":48065,"date":"2025-08-15T08:01:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T16:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/?p=48065"},"modified":"2025-08-15T08:01:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T16:01:18","slug":"living-with-deer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/2025\/08\/15\/living-with-deer\/","title":{"rendered":"Living with Deer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With their hairy leaves, Black-e<\/strong>yed Susan\u2019s are usually avoided by deer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

With those big brown doe eyes and the cute fawns who doesn\u2019t enjoy seeing deer, as long as they\u2019re not in your yard.<\/strong> Around my place they only visit very occasionally which is the worst as I forget they might come at any time and don\u2019t spray on a regular basis. My ornamental sunflower buds were munched and that reminds me, it\u2019s time to spray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spray with S<\/strong>quirrel Stopper (I have a squirrel problem, too) as it\u2019s similar to some of the deer repellents with rosemary oil, corn mint oil, putrescent eggs solids and cinnamon oil but doesn\u2019t smell as bad as some of the deer repellents. I don\u2019t need to spray the zinnias, cosmos or Black-eyed Susan\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have a resident deer population you can still have a beautiful garden.<\/strong> 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\u2019t even nibbled a tiny bit. I don\u2019t know what they were doing in the garden but it wasn\u2019t eating any flowers or foliage. Deer don\u2019t read those lists and their taste varies with the season but I can personally vouch for Achillea \u2018Coronation Gold\u2019, Russian sage, leucospermum, asparagus \u2018Myer\u2019, Kangaroo Paw, Fortnight Lily, Radiant manzanita, Mt Tamboritha grevillea and lantana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deer are browsers<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/strong> They just mix it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That explains the eating habits of deer but what about us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of us are including native plants in our landscapes to attract wildlife and save water and resources<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy your garden. Let the deer browse elsewhere and be aware of plants that may be toxic to children.
Next week I\u2019ll give you some good techniques that help deter deer.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With those big brown doe eyes and the cute fawns who doesn\u2019t enjoy seeing deer, as long as they\u2019re 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\u2019t spray on a regular basis. My ornamental sunflower buds … Continue reading Living with Deer<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1398,1399],"class_list":["post-48065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design-trends","tag-deer-strategies","tag-toxic-plants-and-deer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48067,"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48065\/revisions\/48067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jannelsonlandscapedesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}