Deer Resistant Flowers

A few of Desiree’s outside flowers encountered their first run-in with our local deer population.

Outcome?

Deer: 14   Flowers: 0   

I have had limited success with planting “deer resistant species” in the past.  As a wildlife biologist once told me when I groused about this: “There is always that one deer who doesn’t know they’re not supposed to eat that plant.”

At Desiree’s urging, we stopped by the lawn and garden section of a big box store to see about purchasing a few flowers that might escape the jaws of death (mule deer).  We found most of the store’s remaining planting flowers stuffed inside a large outdoor tent.  I approached the first store employee I saw.  “What do you have that deer don’t eat?” I asked her.

She glanced at a few nearby plants and then engaged me again.  “Chain link fence,” she suggested.

—Mitchell Hegman