Re: Deer & California Natives

The thing about those four legged locust called deer is that they don't 
read deer resistant plant lists!  Different populations of deer in 
different localities during the ever changing seasons of the year munch 
on a wide variety of plants. My experience is that only the highly 
aromatic foliage of plants such as Rosemary or Lavender are consistently 
safe from browsing. Another factor is that nursery grown plants have 
usually been fertilized with abundance amounts of fertilizer to promote 
rapid growth. An abundance of nitrogen in plant tissues is known to 
attract aphids to the enriched tasty foliage. Perhaps rapidly growing 
fertilized foliage is more palatable to the evil bambi. Many of the deer 
in the Berkeley Hills of the San Francisco Bay Area, where I use to live 
are now totally urbanized creatures living totally off of the spoils of 
urban gardens.

I guess what I am trying to say is that the only true guide is local 
experience and that slower growing, acclimatized plants may prove less 
attractive to deer.

Best of luck,
Ernie

Among the Burnt Sages of Cabrillo College
Over 175 different Salvias and growing...

Ernie G. Wasson
Aptos,California 
"All Plants Considered" column at www.gardens.com
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