50 Beautiful Deer-Resistant Plants: The Prettiest Annuals, Perennials, Bulbs, and Shrubs that Deer Don't Eat
Ebook
Overview
Are deer destroying your garden? There is a solution, and it doesn’t involve fencing, barriers, or chemicals. Keeping your garden safe from deer is as simple as choosing the right plants. In 50 Beautiful Deer-Resistant Plants, perennial plant expert Ruth Rogers Clausen highlights the best, most versatile plants that deer simply don’t eat. The plant choices include annuals and perennials, shrubs, bulbs, grasses, and herbs. For each suggested plant, Clausen shares helpful growing and design tips. This practical, authoritative, full-color guide is a must-have solution to a common garden problem.
“This visually appealing, practical, authoritative book is highly recommended for gardeners in deer country who would like to have a beautiful garden without fencing as their only solution.” —Library Journal starred review
“Take her tips, and you just might convince the deer to eat at a restaurant down the street.” —Good House Keeping
“Even apart from its gorgeous photography, which will make you want to eat the plants, the book has much to offer.” —Fresh Dirt Blog
“An exceedingly helpful resource, expertly researched and written by the respected writer Ruth Rogers Clausen.” —Garden Rant
“Using Clausen’s hand-picked varieties, it would be hard to fail at creating a cohesively designed deer-resistant garden that is a pleasure to spend time in.” —Christian Science Monitor
“As an experienced plantswoman, Ruth Rogers Clausen understands the balance between keeping deer out of gardens and fencing gardeners in.” —The Denver Post
“Ruth Rogers Clausen’s book 50 Beautiful Deer Resistant Plants is simply the best book I have read on this subject.” —Open-Line Gardening Show Four Star Review
“Finally here’s a wise, inspiring, and easy-to-use resource for landowners and gardeners who are fortunate enough to love in deer country. . . . a gardener who follows Clausen’s advice can create stress-reducing gardens that give year-round pleasure.” —Virginia Wildlife Magazine
“Ruth Rogers Clausen’s Timber Press book, 50 Beautiful Deer-Resistant Plants, offers gardeners a great way to landscape without concern for deer damage.” —Virginian-Pilot
“I loved all the great suggestions in this book. Clausen includes plants for all landscape areas and the selections provide for varied and interesting plantings.” —East Oregonian
“Overall, I’d highly recommend this book to all deer-plagued gardeners, from those who are just beginning to those who are advanced. Anyone tired of the never-ending battle with the deer needs to have this book by their side!” —GossipintheGarden.com
“Ruth Clausen is one of the best-known names in garden writing, and a trusted source for the most in-depth and reliable information.” —Real Dirt Radio
- Title: 50 Beautiful Deer-Resistant Plants: The Prettiest Annuals, Perennials, Bulbs, and Shrubs that Deer Don't Eat
- Authors: Ruth Rogers Clausen, Alan L. Detrick
- Publisher: Timber Press
- Print Publication Date: 2011
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Pages: 224
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781604693201, 9781604693683, 1604693681, 9781604691955, 1604691956, 1604693207
- Resource ID: LLS:9781604693201
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T07:29:48Z
Alan L. Detrick is a professional photographer whose images of nature and gardens appear in media worldwide. He has lectured and conducted photography workshops at Maine Media Workshops, The New York Botanical Garden, Chanticleer Garden, Brookside Gardens, and Longwood Gardens, as well as for the the American Horticultural Society, the Garden Club of America, and the Garden Writers Association, where he was elected into the Hall of Fame in 2010. He is the author of Macro Photography for Gardeners and Nature Lovers.
Considering the explosion of deer populations across the United States and the huge amount of damage that they inflict on rural, suburban, and even urban gardens and parks, it is no surprise that deer and gardeners are seldom compatible. But is it possible to achieve a beautiful, deer-resistant garden without resorting to fences, barriers, and toxic repellents? Indeed, you can still have a lush, thriving garden by making smart plant choices. Many stunning plants are unpalatable to deer because of their poisonous compounds, fuzzy or aromatic leaves, tough, spiny, or bristly textures, and for a variety of other less obvious reasons. This guide presents the most outstanding ornamental examples of these.
The “Bambi” syndrome is fine for those not plagued by deer. Of course deer are beautiful, and yes, they were sometimes (not always) here first, and they certainly deserve to live out their lives with full bellies as nature intended, but there is often not enough food for dense deer populations, and these animals are stressed by modern life and eradication of habitat. Since natural predators such as mountain lions and wolves have been largely eliminated, deer have been allowed to run out of control. A hundred years ago when year-round hunting was permitted, white-tailed deer numbers dropped, so hunters, fearing their sport would be ruined, urged laws to restrict hunting to about three to four months, from fall through Christmas. As the balance of nature was disrupted, white-tailed deer populations exploded.
Gardeners in different parts of the country are plagued by different species of deer. West of the Mississippi River, mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and black-tailed deer (O. hemionus columbianus) predominate. The latter is a subspecies of the former, smaller and stockier but just as hungry. In the East and elsewhere, white-tailed deer (O. virginianus) make their home. Moose and elk are found in northern regions. While these species formerly lived on the edges of woods and forests, they have now discovered that there are easy and tasty sources of food in a new region called “the backyard.”