While hostas may be one of the deer’s favorite salad greens, there are other plants which are less attractive to these animals. The characteristics which tend to put deer off relate to texture and smell. So anything with thorns or spines tends to be ignored as are alliums and garlic because of their pungent smell. That said different locations vary and it also depends on how hungry the deer are at any particular time. In her regular podcast Margaret Roach from A Way To Garden website recently interviewed Adam Wheeler from Broken Arrow Nursery where they discussed the question of deer-resistant plants in some detail.

Q. Have you managed to outsmart Bambi so far this year?
A. So far, so good.
Q. Really! Well you know me, I am in my barricade [laughter]. Deer cannot get in.? But bear come in pretty regularly, as you know, then this week a male bobcat was in the backyard hunting, having a wonderful time?and I have had gray fox all spring, two adults. It?s like ?Wild Kingdom,? but no deer.
A. It?s amazing how we want some wildlife and some we don?t want.
Q. And we don?t necessarily get to choose. First, can we clarify what we mean?or at least what you mean, since I?m sure you?re asked about this all the time at the nursery?by deer resistance, or deer proof. ?I hate to ever say deer proof because I have seen them standing on their hind legs in the snow eating all the lower branches off spruce trees with stiff needles?which cannot be tasty.
A. It?s kind of a hard concept to really define, but I really prefer to think of it as a spectrum, rather than a yes and no. A lot of people like to say, ?Is this something that the deer will absolutely not touch?? or, ?Is it deer candy??
Really it is a spectrum so there are plants that they favor more than others.
And you?re right on that just because something is deer-resistant, doesn?t mean that it?s deer proof. In reality just because they don?t eat it, doesn?t mean they won?t lay on it, or rut up against it with antlers, or do some other things to it.

Q. [Laughter.] Oh, my goodness.
A. So it is a challenging to really define, but there are some plants that they treat more like candy, and others that are more like Brussels sprouts to me. I?m not a big Brussels sprouts fan, so that?s the other end of the spectrum for me.
Q. Oh, that?s Andy-proof?or, I mean Adam-proof. Oh, I just said Andy?that?s so funny, because of course your colleague is Andy of Broken Arrow. Andy-proof, Adam-proof, whatever. [Laughter.]
You look for new, exciting, rare things for the nursery. How do you learn the appeal or lack of appeal to deer? Do you take the word of the people who might have the plant you?re hoping to coax them to share with you, or do you have insights like visual cues? Or do you test them?
A. It?s sort of a multi-faceted approach. There are certain qualities that plants have that tend to deter deer. Plants that have really fuzzy foliage, as an example. I always tell people to embrace the prickle or thorns?those plants that are armed with thorns or spines are often not attractive to deer. And then things that have a very pungent kind of fragrance: garlic as an example, or all the Allium?the onions, or mint or lavender. Those plants often deter them as well.

So if we look at a new plant and it has fuzzy foliage and a pungent fragrance to the foliage, then that?s giving us some clues about its potential resistance to deer. Also we rely a lot on thinking about the family tree?so if we know that if it?s a close relative of a resistant plant, then that gives us some sense as well.
But ultimately, it comes down to trialing it in gardens. There are five or six of us at the nursery that are quite happy to plant samples in our own landscapes and just see how they do. Certainly my own home landscape has quite a bit of deer pressure, so that it kind of my mad scientist?s lab, where I can test a lot of things and see how they work I the real-world scenarios. [Above, deer-resistant Allium with deer-candy Hosta.]
Q. [Laughter.]
A. And then everything else always comes with hopefully good recommendations from colleagues and friends as well.

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Image source: Susan Tryforos