Las Pilitas native plant nursery says that fremontodendron is not for deer areas, so I think I would go for planting from deer resistant lists. Does Sunset mention anything about deer resistance for fremontodendron? Cistus are deer resistant and good on hillsides. I'm sure there are many others to choose from.

Sunset has a section on deer resistant plants...at least the book I have does. I hope newer books didn't discontinue that.

About your Fremontodendrons getting tall and falling over down hill, yes they do. When mine get to about four inches trunk diameter or more, and the soil is saturated as it is now, they just lay on the ground down hill. I cut mine off at about four feet from the ground, attach a "come along" and pull back into vertical. I lash it to a "t" post to keep it vertical for a year or so, then remove the post. The tree recovers and puts out a lot of lateral branches. I don't think I would have this problem if the tree was in a full sun location, where it would tend to grow straight up. Al

Thanks all. The deer on my hillside have killed absolutely everything supposedly deer-resistant, including cistus, oaks, cypress, manzanita, coffeeberry and many more.

So my plan was to plant fast-growing taller shrubs and trees and just protect them until the browsing wouldn't kill them.

Maybe I just need a new plan :)

There's always coyote bush, in the spring, the white flowers are pretty when it blooms.

Here is a link that might be useful: coyote

mlevie, you and I need a good deer fence. The deer come through here and clean me out. The best price I can get on a deer fence is $8 a foot $6000 in my case, with no room in my retirement income, all I can do is complain. Al

YOW! $6,000? I feel lucky to have gophers.
Renee