Deer are beautiful to look at, but they also dine on our plants which make anybody angry! No list of deer resistant plants is 100% trustworthy, but a deer’s appetite changes by the season. In the winter as the snow piles up and the vegetation disappears, deer are known to at anything to survive.
The following list includes plants that seem to be less desirable to deer:
SHRUBS
- Japanese Barberry
- Butterfly Bush
- Summersweet Clethra
- White Fringetree
- Smokebush
- Carol Mackie Daphne
- Dwarf Bushhoneysuckle
- Forsythia
- Witchhazel
- Rose of Sharon
- St. John’s Wort
- Winterberry
- Japanese Kerria
- Northern Bayberry
- Potentilla
- Fragrant Sumac
- Rugosa Rose
- Red Elderberry
- Spirea
- Common Snowberry
- Indiancurrant Coralberry
- Common Lilac
- Arrowwood Viburnum
EVERGREENS
- Boxwood
- Inkberry
PERENNIALS
- Yarrow
- Anise-Hyssop
- Lady’s Mantle
- Ornamental Onion
- Willow Amsonia
- Anemone
- Columbine
- Jack-in-the-pulpit
- Red Milkweed
- Butterfly weed
- Astilbe
- False Indigo
- Pig squeak
- Siberian Bugloss
- Sedge
- Black Snakeroot
- Coreopsis
- Pinks
- Bleeding Heart
- Purple Coneflower
- Joe-Pye Weed
- Queen of the Prairie
- Blanketflower
- Wild Geranium
- Prairie Smoke
- Lenten Rose/Hellebore
- Coralbells
- Blazing Star
- Ligularia
- Cardinal Flower
- Lupine
- Ostrich Fern
- Virginia Bluebells
- Beebalm
- Catmint
- Peony
- Russian Sage
- Obedient Plant
- Jacob’s Ladder
- Solomon’s Seal
- Lungwort
- Black-eyed Susan
- Perennial Salvia
- Sedum
- Goldenrod
- Spider Wort
- Toad Lily