gardeners / landscape people

Hey guys. If all goes well, my husband and I will be closing on a house in June. It's kind of out in the middle of no where, which is how we like things, but I'm concerned that the deer will eat anything and everything I plant. I know that with the veg. garden itself I'll have to fence in, but I would like to stick with deer resistant plants as much as possible for the rest.

Pictures:




I was thinking of doing Washington Hawthorns along the tree line in the back.



and I have no idea what to do with this hill. I'd really like to just cover it in flowers or something so I don't have to mow. the hill is a lot steeper than it looks. It seems to have morning shade and evening sun.



Please, help me make my yard awesome.

Your new place is beautiful!

Rhododendron and japanese pierus are pretty deer resistant and look nice. However, I think you should just plant a majillion blueberry bushes and raspberry canes, then get some borzois and turn them free to fill your freezer with venison.

Er, I mean scare the deer away.

If I could convince my husband to let me get a borzoi I'd do it in a heart beat. Unfortunately, he doesn't like how sighthounds look. So it's going to take me a little time to wear him down.

That house is adorable! It's my favorite style...absolutely beautiful! Congrats! I've been doing some landscaping and making multiple trips to the nursery, which is only about 1/4 mile from my house. (very bad for my wallet) lol. Anyhow, when I read the tags on all the plants, some say "deer resistant." You can ask a nurseryman or look online too. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head other than a few like Romy mentioned. Where I use to live, I had raspberry bushes and the deer and bears would come nibble on them. But I didn't mind because I had a lot of them. They mainly only came around after I lost my Lab and Doberman. If you have any kind of dogs, they'll tend to keep the deer away for the most part. Of course, the deer seem to wise up and come at night when they learn that the dogs are inside. And the bear and deer would figure out when I was out of town for an extended period and I'd come back and really see a lot of evidence that they had spent a lot of time hanging around in my yard. A big cedar tree close to the patio had big scratches in it from the bear marking. There were poos all over the lawn. That didn't happen when I was around. So, they definitely could notice when someone is there or not and make their move accordingly. lol. And when I was down to just two Chihuahuas, that didn't seem to worry the deer too much. The bears were more shy and very careful about the times they'd come to nom nom on the berries. But go online and see what you can find. I've been doing a lot of that lately too for my landscape project. My son is putting in a flagstone patio and a waterfall and we have no idea how to do it. Thank goodness for the Internet. I hope we get it right. lol.

Good luck! And congratulations!

Love the house and land...so pretty

My only caution is to keep in mind many deer resistant plants and varieties are still eaten by deer, at least here:/ Depends on the year and how everything else is doing, but if they get hungry, they eat.

The house is so cute! I love capes! And I like how they did the dormer in the back so you can't see it from the front.

Sorry, I have no gardening advice. I always go to my local ($$) nursery and ask them what to do. You may want to check out the GardenWebs forums, though.

Plant raspberries and blackberries. In a few years you will have some delicious crosses, especially if you go with heritage varieties

Dober, I'm most definitely concerned about bears too. They caught one about 15 miles from the house last year.

If they're black bears, your dogs will probably scare them off......unless they are desperately hungry. But bears seem to be pretty afraid of domestic dogs as far as I've noticed. My little boy Chihuahua ran one off my property twice. lol. That scared me. But anyhow, if you're around, you can always clap your hands or clatter pots and pans. They'll run off in most cases. (depending on how used they are to humans. The more humans they are around, the more risk of unpredictability I think) They use to come around to the resorts all the time and get into their dumpsters.

I don't know how to keep the bears away from your gardens. Some people pee around their property line and "mark" but I don't really know if that works. (can't say as I tried that) lol. They can climb fences pretty well if they're brazen enough to come into a fenced area. I never called anyone when I knew a bear was around because of where I lived. That was pretty much par for the course. I didn't leave any food out and didn't feed the birds or anything...was very careful. But I did have raspberries. Of course, right on my property where it was woodsy, there were wild huckleberries...nothing much to do about that. We just co-habitated. I hope you can at least keep them away from your favorite things. Keep us posted. Your place looks really lovely. I'm very happy for you.

Oh, beautiful place!

I don't know much about deer resistant plants, but here's my advice.

Crepe Myrtles are your friend. Beautiful, smaller trees that love sun and water, and have pretty pink, white, purple, or red blooms for a good chunk of the year. Trees that bloom red (I just got two, and already without blooms they the leaves are turning a deep, beautiful red color) will grown smaller than the rest of the colors. Just FYI.

It looks like you have enough room to plant a few maple trees. They do get pretty large, but in the fall your house will be beautiful even if that's the only color your have. I wish we had room for a big maple tree.

Elephant ears are beautiful green plants, they do love water though.

Sunflowers are always a nice addition to any yard. Lavender is a lighter green bush with purple blooms.

Confederate Jasmine is a wonderful vine type plant (we have it running along our fence) that has glossy green leaves and small white flowers and blooms in the spring. Also, it smells wonderful!

Is there a nursery near you? I would suggest taking a trip to a local nursery and they'll be more than happy to discuss potential plants that would work in your area!

I was going to suggest mock-orange as a tree until I remembered that we had to build a cage round ours to save it from the deer. :rofl1:

If you like roses deer love them too, but the rugosas stand up to them pretty well.


They grow very thick and fast, and have wicked thorns which make them an excellent hedge rose. Their hips are gigantic, juicy, and delicious too.

Buahahaha!


Bleeding heart is safe from deer. They've never bothered my feverfew, calendula, or bee balm either.

I've also never heard of deer eating golden rain trees. Our neighbors have some and they're never touched.

Thanks guys. You are the best! There are a few nurseries near the house. One is about a half mile down the road, which could end up being pretty bad on the wallet. maybe I should make a rule that I can't drive down to the nursery, only walk.

I tried to convince Ben to let me just fence the whole property in. That didn't work too well. Plus the town has all sort of rules when it come to putting up a fence, especially fences up by roads. Now I'm just going to surround the property with pretty, thorny bushes.

Probably too cold in the Empire State for crepe myrtles, unfortunately . . .

However, for deer resistant ground cover, try hellbore. Bulbs, daffodils and crocus. Looking vaguely like crepe myrtle are butterfly bushes . . .

Also, anything outright poisonous is pretty much deer resistant . . . foxglove, for example.

The house is gorgeous!

I have no suggestions as I'm wildly buying pretty plants only to discover that I bought the wrong ones for the spots I picked them out for.... But your house and land is gorgeous!!

Beautiful house. I am jealous.

I am in the can't beat them... eat them crowd. Plant an apple orchard, put an electric fence around the fast growing eating veggies and yard, and get ready for shooting them in the fall .