The deer stripped my euonymus shrubs. I've attached a photo. Most of the leaves are gone but 20% remain. My question is . . will the leaves come back? If so when? I need some advice, like "wait one year and the plants will be back to normal" . . . or on the other side of the coin "It will be several years before those leaves come back. Better to just bite the bullet and buy new plants". So do I stick it out or re-plant? Thanks for any insights.
Assuming you can keep the deer from continuing to eat them, they will come back and be just fine. Since it's getting into winter now they might not put out a ton of new growth right away, but definitely in the spring they should come back.
Thanks for the positive feedback. I'd hate to have to replant. About the deer coming back . . . I went to Home Depot and got a product they recommended called "Deer OFF". It is rain proof and weather resistant. You just need to re-apply every 3 months. I put it on and it smells absolutely horrible for a few hours then it quiets down. Now I can't smell it at all . . but apparently the deer can and they hate it. So this spring I will look forward to new leaves. You sound like you speak from experience. Have you had your euonymus leaves stripped too? Thanks.
No, I don't have euonymus or trouble with deer (gophers are my big issue!). But your plant isn't really that badly damaged--think of it as being like a really bad pruning job. But there's still plenty of plant left and its roots are fine so there's no reason why it shouldn't come back for you as long as you can keep the deer from continuing to chomp on it. Euonymus are tough plants and the damage looks a lot worse than it actually is
This happened to me, too, during our unusually heavy snow in January. My euonymous is even worse than Umgowa's. Thanks for asking the question and thanks for the advice. I'm glad it will come back this spring!
I am a fan of Liquid Fence. (Of course you can't spray it when it's freezing outside and the shrubs are covered in snow.) Yes, it stinks upon application. But by the next day the smell has died down. I've tried Deer Scram and it doesn't appear to be better than Liquid Fence but it's a lot more expensive. I tried Bobex and it did NOT work. Also, this year I put plant protection bags over my roses, and it worked. They didn't even try to nibble the bags.
