Tips and Tricks to Avoid a Deer’s Garden Appetite

Deer tracks through a bed of untouched Dusty Miller in Riverview Park

As the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy’s gardener, Angela Masters is the artist behind some of the City’s most beautiful horticultural displays. In Schenley Plaza there is a bright robustness to the plants and flowers, the individual plantings tucked quietly into the clusters of benches feel like a private display. Mellon Park’s Walled Garden is completed by the elegant simplicity of its Daisies in fall, while Highland Park’s Entry Garden feels fit for a royal introduction, and Riverview Park is, as Angela puts it, “All about the flowers.”  She loves these gardens and talks about the success or disappointment of a particular planting with an air of motherly pride or concern. While she has a host of obstacles to battle for each garden, temperature, moisture, and insects included, our City’s large deer population is one that dictates many of her planting choices.

                Over time, Angela has watched whole gardens go devoured by the deer, particularly in Riverview Park. She’s come up with creative ways of making her flower beds a little less appetizing. “I don’t have scientific information to back these things up,” she says. “These are just things that I’ve observed as a gardener.” When planting to deter deer, Angela focuses on the texture and fragrance of plants, as well as using inter-planting and plant barrier techniques to keep them away from the plants they will like. Her tips and tricks might help in your garden too.           

 

Daffodils are a good choice because of the slimy texture inside their leaves

Texture

Think about it, we all have foods we don’t care to eat because of texture. Angela is banking on the fact that deer are the same way, and in her experience, it’s true. Two of her favorite annuals to plant are Dusty Miller, because of the fuzzy leaves, and Zinnias due to the roughness of the leaves. Daffodils are a great deer deterrent because the inside of the leaf is slimy. Angela also likes to plant Irises because she’s noticed that while the deer may sample the plant, they usually leave it and don’t return to bother it again.

Fragrance

Bee Balm

We want what we eat to smell good. We’ve all taken a sniff of something and recoiled refusing to even try it. The deer do too. Angela finds that strong fragrances are usually not favorites in the plant buffet. The Yarrow plant, with its tiny flowers available in a multitude of colors, is one she uses frequently. Bee Balm is a nice choice as it is native to the area and carries a beautiful fluorescent firecracker bloom. The smell of any type of mint plant can turn them away as well; Angela often uses Cat Mint and the native Mountain Mint. Some annuals she recommends due to fragrance are Marigolds, Salvias, and Alyssum.   

Placement

The Holly (All the way in the back against the building) is protected by a row of Mountain Mint in front of it

You don’t have to give up on planting Bambie’s favorite snacks completely. After we finished the Riverview Chapel Shelter restoration in 2008, the oval in front of the building was planted with Liriope, a thick grass-like plant that carries tiny purple blossoms, but the deer devoured it out almost as quickly as it grew. To keep them out, Angela inter-plants fragrant flowers she knows the deer won’t like, Daffodils in spring and Marigolds in summer. The deciduous Holly plants in front of the Chapel Shelter were being consumed almost as quickly. Since the Holly is against the building itself, creating a plant barrier of fragrant Mountain Mint in front of it has allowed it to thrive.    

An Ongoing Process

The fragrance of Marigolds may deter deer from eating them and the plants around them

Angela points out that keeping the deer out of the gardens is an ongoing and often frustrating process. Until a few weeks ago, she would have told you that Black-eyed Susan’s are a good deer-safe choice because of the hairy texture of their leaves, but she’s found a bed where they’ve been eaten away almost completely. The Liriope that was planted and subsequently consumed in Riverview was chosen because it is advertised as a deer resistant plant. At the end of the day, the deer are trying to survive and they will adapt to do so, but aren’t we glad to have Angela and her creative solutions to keep our gardens full of life and color.    

Kathleen McGuire is a Development Associate at the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy

 All photos courtesy of Angela Masters