Tips for Deterring Deer from Your Garden

Once deer find your yard, they'll jump fences, ignore scares, and return regularly to devour plants. They'll eat almost anything depending on hunger and regional preferences. Even "deer-resistant" plants aren't guaranteed.

See top deer-resistant plants for your specific region.

Plant spring-blooming bulbs the deer won't eat.

Odor Deterrents

Effectiveness varies; deer often adapt in days. Common deterrents spread around plants:

• Mothballs
• Thorny branches
• Hair
• Decaying fish heads
• Blood meal
• Garlic
• Fabric softener
• Processed sewage
• Repellent plants

Noise Deterrents

• Floodlights
• Noisemakers
• Flags
• Radios
• Whistles
• Firecrackers
• Electric wires
• Hidden fishing lines
• Sprinklers

Sprays

Deer-defying sprays: rotten-egg/water, soap spray, hot-pepper spray, commercial sprays. Some lure deer away by planting favorite foods in remote areas.

Fences

Most effective: a fence around the garden. Must extend partly underground, no gaps >6x6 inches, enclose entire garden (deer go around), at least 8 feet high. Some deer clear 8 feet unless obstacles (angled netting, branches, thorny shrubs) block takeoff/landing. Or try two 4–5 foot fences 3 feet apart.

Plant the Right Plants

Deer avoid poisonous, fuzzy, coarse, spiny, bitter, or very aromatic plants. But they'll try uncertain things. Start with these deer-resistant options:

Trees

• Black locust
• Cedar
• False cypress
• Ginkgo
• Hackberry
• Hawthorn
• Japanese maple
• Magnolia
• Oak
• Palm trees
• Spruce (usually)

Use our plant encyclopedia to search for deer-resistant trees hardy to your region.

Shrubs

• Abelia
• Golden bamboo
• Heavenly bamboo
• Barberry (usually)
• Boxwood
• Butterfly bush
• Cotoneaster
• Currant
• Daphne
• Burning bush (some varieties)
• Flowering quince
• Heath
• Holly
• Lilac
• Mahonia
• Mountain laurel
• Pieris
• Potentilla
• Smoke tree
• Spirea
• St. John's Wort
• Sumac
• Tamerisk tree
• Viburnum
• Yucca

Use our plant encyclopedia to search for deer-resistant shrubs hardy to your region.

Perennials

• Ajuga
• Agave
• Aster
• Astilbe
• Bellflower
• Catmint
• Centaurea
• Cyclamen
• Fern
• Black-eyed Susan
• Iris
• Lamb's ears
• Lavender
• Lupine
• Mint

• Phlox
• Oleander
• Ornamental onion
• Penstemon
• Fountaingrass
• Rosemary
• Salvia
• Armeria
• Thyme
• Tuberous begonia
• Verbena
• Veronica
• Viola
• Yarrow

Use our plant encyclopedia to search for deer-resistant perennials hardy to your region.