Want to Keep Deer From Eating Your Garden? Here’s What to Plant

Ideal for adding both privacy and height to your garden, pampas grass won’t get gobbled up by pesky deer this spring and summer. It looks great as it dries out and dies when the weather gets cold—just be sure to cut the dead stalks ahead of every new growing season.

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Related: The Best Ornamental Grasses to Add to Your Garden

Like many fragrant herbs, sage is a plant deer won’t go near. That makes it a great addition to any garden or vegetable patch. We recommend planting sage near other plants that deer love to try and deter them.

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Related: The Best Indoor Herb Gardens to Try

Despite their alluring name, deer can’t stand buttercups. These are a great wildflower for natural and rewilding landscape ideas. Plant them in the fall for a gorgeous yellow wash come spring.

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Homegrown herbs are one of the easiest ways to upgrade your cooking, but deer are often attracted to edible plants. However, fragrant thyme is an exception. Plant it in and around your vegetable patches to deter curious critters.

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Highly poisonous to all creatures, including humans, these flowers will keep deer far away from your beloved garden. Available in both light and dark hues ranging from sky blue to rich purple, plant larkspur in groups for an eye-catching landscape.

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Tall and striking, meadow rue plants are a part of the buttercup family, so deer won’t snack on them either. These plants are great if your garden is in need of some height—plus, they offer a sweet, buttery yellow hue.

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Also known as aconite or wolfsbane, monkshood is a highly toxic and poisonous plant to all humans and animals. What it lacks in friendliness, it makes up for with its vibrant purple coloring. Because it’s so harmful to animals, it should be used sparingly.

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Often associated with Christmastime, holly bushes are evergreens with striking red berries (they’re harmful for humans, so don’t eat them) all winter long. The spiky leaves deter deer, which makes them ideal for landscaping and outdoor holiday decorating.

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This flowering plant produces the captivating spice star anise. Anise flowers are small and quaint with bulbous heads, and they’re great for breaking up groups of larger flowers. Because of their spicy taste, deer don’t like snacking on them.

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This adorable perennial is not a favorite of deer, so it’s a great option for your shade garden. Its heart-shaped blooms appear in early to late spring.

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This shrub has a somewhat fuzzy texture that usually doesn’t appeal to deer. It comes in white-, pink-, or yellow-flowered varieties and blooms all season long.

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This sturdy perennial has silvery-green leaves with a somewhat fuzzy texture. It also has a pungent spicy-minty fragrance that makes most deer avoid it.

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These evergreen shrubs make great foundation plantings, and they’re not particularly appealing to deer. You can leave them natural or shear them into shape.

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Daphne is a beautiful evergreen shrub with glossy green leaves that bloom lovely, fragrant pink flowers from mid-winter to late spring. Its strong scent and toxic berries tend to keep deer away.

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This attractive silvery annual makes a stunning accent for containers or beds. Deer don’t enjoy its velvety texture.

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This mounding ornamental grass looks amazing when planted in groups—and deer aren’t fans of its sharp texture.

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Hellebore, or Lenten rose, is an outstanding perennial for a part-shade garden. With waxy, evergreen foliage and exquisite blooms during late winter into early spring (around the time of Lent), this is a must-have for any garden that deer visit.

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Alliums, or ornamental onions, have pretty, round flowers atop long stems in late spring. (Plant the bulbs in fall for spring flowers.) Their onion-y scent keeps deer at bay.

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