Add HIBISCUS (tropical and hardy) to list of PLANTS THAT DEER SEEM TO LOVE.

My deer seem to be very regimented. This is a plus as I can work around them. They follow the same route every night as they forage in my yard. Plants not along this route are untouched. My specimen hostas are safe but the common green hostas I would love to be rid of are all stems. They seem to not want to bend to eat so anything shorter than 18" is safe. They eat heuchera and astilbe flowers but not the leaves. All in all my deer are relatively easy to live with.

Glad to hear that your deer are well behaved. All in all, I prefer my deer neighbors to the human ones. The deer don't throw parties that start at 2:00 pm. and end the next day at 4:00 to 5:00 am. They don't play loud, hideous, God-awful music, nor do they deposit empty beer bottles in your yard, nor stumble unto your property in a drunken stupor. There is definitely a learning curve when it comes to gardening in a heavy deer zone. I am in the process of putting up a fence--no, not to keep the deer out but the human neighbors. A single fence will run north to south--discouraging the roaming humans next door but permitting the north/south flow of commuting deer (traveling between the two wooded areas).

My remedy: hang CDs around the area where your plants are. (one every 10 or 20 feet is fine)

I did this, and here are my observations about the effectiveness:

a) my cherry trees that got attacked the year I planted them have not been touched by deer in the years since I hung a CD from each tree (a beaver took the originals out a couple years ago and I had to replace them all, but that is an other story and another remedy)

b) hostas in the front that were eaten to the ground 2 years running have not been touched in the couple years since I put in the CDs

c) hostas in the rock garden in the back have been eaten to the ground this year (I have not gotten around to hanging CDs there)

Interesting that they eat the red tip photinia in your area. In my yard and the neighbors the red tips have never been touched as far as I know. We consider it one of the best deer proof options.

After a couple of years of building a very large, deer resistant garden, I no longer stress over them. We're getting along.

Cameron

Here is a link that might be useful: do you need a deer fence?

I notice that this year the deer are eating things that they wouldn't touch before. We are in our 3rd year of drought and the deer are getting desperate. I could usually just spray the perimeter of my garden with liquid fence or blood meal every few weeks and the deer stayed away. This year they are ignoring all forms of repellent and eating my tomatoes right down to the roots. I am now keeping everything covered with deer netting or I go out at night and cover with sheets. I feel sorry for the deer but if they eat, we don't. We are told by fish & game not to put hay or grain out for them. I try to water the weedy areas of our 5 acres as much as possible without drying up our well but the deer don't seem to like the weeds as much as our garden.

One thing that drives me crazy is that there are some plants they don't like -- but the kids try them anyway and pull them out by the roots! I have fibrous begonias and once they get established they are hardly touched. Another one is geranium. The kids nibble the flowers off and then spit them out. And they don't learn on just one plant.