As you may have already guessed from the many pictures of deer in previous posts, my new house is in the middle of deer country.
So… knowing how deer treat flower gardens as their own personal buffet, I’ve been researching plants that are supposed to be “Deer Resistant” for my new perennial bed in the front yard.
So far they’ve sampled only a few plants on the list (a Centaurea montana and the Cardinal vine –
Ipomoea), but have left them alone since.
Anyway, I also love my flower pots and usually line my porch steps and any other convenient place that begs for a spot of color. So I decided, after the deer ate my ivy gerainum off the porch last summer, to apply the Deer Resistant gardening to my flower pots as well.
Here’s what I’ve come up with:
Alyssum, dwarf snapdragon, sweet william, and corkscrew grass (Juncus) in a 20″ ceramic bowl. (oh, in case you’re wondering, I don’t use chemical fertilizers- I mix my own soil of peat, compost and a bit of organic dry fertilizer. The plants love it!). The Juncus isn’t on the resistant plant list but I thought it looked cool and I’m depending on the “undesirable” plant to protect it (fingers crossed!)
Purple fountain grass, silver falls dichondra, and a little bit of blue lobelia, barely poking out.
A perennial and annual ‘Mailbox’ garden- Osteospermum, Alyssum, Yarrow, Dusty Miller, Purple Fountain grass, dwarf snap dragons, and a Shasta daisy (daisy is hard to see from this angle).
and a box full of Dianthus- or biannual sweet william. The little green pot next to it is Peppermint.
This is Mama Deer. She shows up around dinner time, everyday.
She has a fawn hidden close by in the woods.
So far she’s leaving my pots alone…
Here’s my source.
It has lots of good information about deer behavior and other pests and how to detour them.
But the best part is in the back with an extensive list of plants that resist deer, listing their toxicity if any, their care and a very brief description of ways to propagate your own
(notice is didn’t say “deer proof”- no plant is deer proof as they will nibble on anything at least once).
You can find this at Amazon.com in the
Kindle version but the pictures of plants are in black and white. The paperback version is nicer and has full color picture of the plants.
Lil's Garden Tour 