Now the liriope is being eaten AND pulled up despite spraying

:(

Deer really do develop different tastes based upon the doe matriarch of the herds.

I've had rudbeckia sampled a bit by either deer, rabbits or both. I put up a 32" high wire edging fence around those until they get big.

My geranium 'Rozanne' were sampled once when first planted this spring, but just a few blooms. The deer have been going through my garden a lot but haven't taken a second helping of those.

What salvia are you growing? Could it be May Night? Rabbits have been reported to be nibbling May Night. I have greggii, ulignosia, rose queen, black and blue...no nibbling at all. I'm thinking that rabbits may be nibbling my caradonna salvia.

Euphorbia is really toxic (I thought). This really surprises me. The deer must really be desperate for food in your area.

A few little blooms on my perennial ageratum (eupatorium) have been sampled, but it wasn't liked by whatever tried it.

I have a big garden out in the open and I don't use any deer repellants. I have an indoor dog (greyhound) who doesn't even bark at the deer. The deer just amble out of the way when we go outside! We have a very large herd of 20+ deer with at least 3 new fawns every year since we've been here.

If you look at the lower left, you can see the edging fence around my rudbeckia (not yet in bloom).

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I'm really sorry that you're having this trouble. It is unfortunately, a lot of trial and error. However, replacing a few plants to keep working through to get something you can safely grow will be (in the long run) a lot less cheaper and less frustrating than paying for expensive deer repellants...over and over again. I tried that at a previous house and for the money spent, I could have planted an entire new garden several times over.

I empathize with you. I am determined and it is my goal to have a beautiful garden among (in spite of) deer.

Cameron (in North Carolina)

and my Deer...

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Here is a link that might be useful: my gardening blog

Plants listed as resistant to deer or rabbits refer to established plants. Young plants have not had enough time to develop the repelling substance to be effective against the animal.

It is easy to ID the chewing animal by examining the angle of the cut. Rabbits cut stems,etc, at a 45 degree angle where deer cut stem straight across, flat.

I have found that the best defense is a fence. Other than that, both animal sniff their food before eat, so a smelly spray works. You can make an inexpensive spray by heating one cup corn oil in a non aluminum sauce pan to 225 degrees then removing it from the heat and adding 1/4 cup cayenne power. Stir well, let cool and filter through coffee filters into a very clean glass jar. Store at room temp for up to a year. To make a spray solution: Add one once of oil to one gal. of water, adding 3-4 drop of pure soap, dish soap will work also. Test spray first and re-spray every 30 days or after a heavy rain. It works!!!

The deer in our area are being driven away from their old haunts to new ones (lots of new houses taking up farmland). We used to see the deer only starting in the fall and through the winter. Now, they are here year 'round. They ate the very tender first buds off my daylilies, but left them alone when they got older. More bitter? The same with our sunflowers. My green beans and first tomatoes were just green sticks. They loved the greens on our beets. Also the wild sweetpeas--when they were young and tender, yummy. After they got older, not so tasty. Now we have wire fencing around tomatoes and frost cover and bird netting over the smaller plants, even jalapenos.--hdr