Jody's Notes Deer Tolerant Plants White tail deer are a pest if you are trying to grow plants at your home or on the roadside. Deer on the roadside are especially dangerous for both motorist and deer. Thus, home owners and roadside managers both share the need to discourage these destructive animals. The roadside flowers that we selected are usually not enticing to deer; however, if these critters are hungry enough they will eat or at least taste about any plant they can get to. Last summer a marauding doe pulled up a bed of annual vinca but left the plants in tact. Deer will often eat new growth while leaving the old. To really make you crazy, they will eat some species one year and not the next year. To add insult to injury, they will patiently eat blooms and leave the stem. The only plants they stay clear of are those that are highly aromatic (lavander and tansy) and prickled plants (barberry). Gardening with deer is quite a challenge. If you are totally disgusted by the deer invasion, consider planting a native grass meadow mixed with some of the following flowering species. Roadside Flower Deer Tolerant Plants Achillea spp. (yarrow) Agastache scrophulariifolia (giant purple hyssop) Allium spp.(onion) Antirrhinum majus (snapdragon) Amsonia tabernaemontana (blue star) Aquilegia canadensis (wild columbine) Arisaema spp. (Jack-in-the-pulpit) Aruncus dioicus (goat's beard) Asclepias spp. (butterfly/milkweed) Aster spp. (aster) Baptisia australis (blue false indigo) Buddleia spp. (butterfly weed) Cimicifuga racemosa (black cohosh) Coreopsis lanceolata (lanceleaf coreopsis) Coreopsis tinctoria (prairie tickseed) Cosmos spp. (cosmos) Digitalis spp.(foxglove) Echinacea purpurea (purple coneflower) Eupatorium coelestinium (mist flower) Ferns Helenium autumnale (sneeze-weed) Helianthus maximilianii (Maximilian sunflower) Hesperis matronalis (dame's rocket) Liatris spicata (blazing star) Monarda spp. (wild mint or bergamot) Narcissus spp. (daffodil, will eat flowers occasionally) Papaver spp. (poppy) Penstemon spp. (beardtongue) Perovskia atriplicifolia (Russian sage) Phlox divaricata (blue wood phlox) Phlox stolonifera (creeping phlox) Polemonium reptans (Jacob's ladder) Rudbeckia spp. (coneflower) Ranunculus spp. (butter cup) Ratibia columnaris (yellow prairie coneflower) Salvia spp. (sage) Solidago spp. (goldenrods) Symplocarpus foetidus (skunk cabbage) Verbena hastata (blue vervain) Veronicastrum virginicum (Cluver's root) Zinnia spp. (zinnia)