Here's what the deer have been enjoying this spring...

Thought I would join and share/vent a little about my experiences with the local deer this spring. I am in the south Puget Sound region, zone 8. I have 4 acres that I plan to turn into a large garden. It's the only reason I bought the property. I am in the initial stages. Ultimately, I plan to fence the entire parcel, but it will be some time before that is completed, but in the meantime I wanted to enjoy some plants, and I decided upon a mixed border of predominantly "deer resistant" plants, with some not-so-deer-resistant varieties thrown in for good measure. I gleaned the information from various websites of growers as well as gardeners. I was skeptical, and for good reason. I do not believe there is such thing after my experience.

The first plant to be eaten nearly to the ground was Euphorbia 'Ruby Glow.' A shame, because the chartreuse flowers above the dark foliage were really beautiful, and I had just started enjoying them. A 5 gallon Hydrangea 'Bluebird' sitting on the ground nearby was left untouched. Next to go was the Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve Compactum', or at least the flowers. Then one recent morning I found Halimiocistus 'Merrist Wood Cream' had shrunken considerably. That's when I started taking a close look around and noticed that Rhus typhina 'Bailtiger' was missing all of its new growth. Next to it, Taxus 'Hicksii was a foot shorter- my bad, I knew they liked that but thought I could sneak it in. Fail.

As I was noting not only the lost new growth of the Rhus, but the gnawed on stem, I felt something was "missing," but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Then it hit me, Crocosmia 'Bright Eyes' had gone missing. The recently 12" tall grasslike foliage was mowed to the ground. Crocosmia 'Lucifer' remained. Laying nearby, I found a large top to one of my Sedums. Good enough to grab a giant mouthful, not good enough to chew and swallow. Hebe 'Alicia Amherst' was pruned hard. My fault, I knew they'd eat that. Berberis 'Orange Rocket' suffered the same fate as the Hebe. Various Calluna provided a nice, albeit unsurprising, dessert, while Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Nana Gracilis' was used as the after dinner mint.

Plants they have ignored thus far: Senecio greyii, Euphorbia myrsinites, Stachys byzantina, Rosmarinus officinalis, and various Allium, Lavender, and Sedum. Ceanothus 'Julia Phelps' seems like it may have been lightly browsed.





This message was edited Apr 20, 2015 12:02 PM

Good luck with your 4 acre garden. Unfortunately, the deer haven't read the books/tags. When they're hungry all bets are off.

Thought I would update this post. Things settled down with the deer for a little while, but they've been massacring the garden over the course of the past week. I'm done buying plants until I fence the property (I made this decision a while ago). I can't bear to even look at some of my plants right now. I ended up removing the Rhus. They just continued eating every bit of new foliage, leaving the plant perpetually bare. I put it in a pot in a totally different area. I think it will live its life there, because I don't like suckers anyway.

I had planted a 5 gallon Cotinus 'Grace' that I had read was "seldom severely damaged" and on a deer resistant plant list. That was a mistake. The poor plant has been absolutely devastated. All the new growth is gone, and it's down to essentially the wood with a few leaves. Back into a pot it goes. It was about 4 feet tall, and big, so I thought it would have a fighting chance. Not so. Also, Baptisia 'Purple Smoke' was about 3 feet tall, and listed at the highest level of deer resistance. Eaten to the ground.

These deer seem hell bent on eating everything to death. Not only that, they are tearing plants out of the ground, and trampling those they don't want to eat. I had a few more Sedums topped and torn out. I found 'Autumn Joy' about 5 feet from where it had been planted several weeks prior. That's a plant I thought for sure they'd leave alone. They haven't touched any of my grasses. They are chowing down on my Penstemons. They ate all the flowers off my Delphinium and Erysimum.

Hmm. When does hunting season open? Our Ca. elk seem to know . You see them everywhere until the season opens, then they vanish into thin air.

Are you spraying the plants with anything? Sounds like your garden would be a good testing ground.