By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer
If you want to grow anything you want, including roses, in an area, like Cambria, California, where deer roam the neighborhoods like stray cats, there is no substitute for a good tall fence. But sometimes tall fences don't look right. Around a small front yard, for instance. So here's what you do in that case, says deer-resistant landscaping expert Shana McCormick of Great Gardens, who helped homeowners Julie and Monty Rice create the front yard garden shown below.
1. Find a list of deer-resistant plants. Study it, decide what you like, make preliminary selections, and then go test them against reality, says Shana. Walk or drive your neighborhood and see if any of the plants you've selected are doing well in other gardens. Also observe what is thriving, despite deer, that wasn't on your list. The plants deer will or won't eat varies considerably from neighborhood to neighborhood, Shana has observed. Sometimes even old reliables like rosemary aren't safe.
(Some of the plants used in the garden above, and obviously thriving, are sweet-pea bush (Polygala x dalmaisiana), society garlic, bush germander (Teucrium fruticans), lavender, lamb's ears, and Coleonema.)
2. Revise your list and trial all the plants you intend to use in quantity. Buy the largest specimens available to give them a fighting chance, suggests Shana, and test them for at least two weeks. Tweak your list again.
3. Now you can plant. Again, buy the largest specimens you can find, says Shana, and plant in the rainy season if you can when deer aren't so hungry and thirsty. For further protection, just while plants are getting started, Shana puts out blood meal or Liquid Fence.
4. Water plants just enough to keep them healthy. Lush foliage of almost any kind is irresistible to thirsty deer, says Shana. This is especially important with natives, she says. "I know deer aren't supposed to eat things like ceanothus or coffeeberry, but they devour them in residential gardens when they're young," she says. "I love natives, but find them hard to get established unless I grow them especially hard."
Another view of the Rice garden:
You can learn more deer-proofing techniques from Shana McCormick at the class on the subject she'll be teaching at Cambria Nursery on November 29th.
Shana McCormick, Great Gardens, (805) 927-1749
