Deer resistant hostas?

[Schattenfreude]

Are there any hostas that the deer won't eat? If not, what other shade-tolerant plants are there that deer won't touch?

Kevin

[eastwood2007]

Hi, Kevin -

Sorry, but I don't think there are any deer resistant hostas....not sure about shade plants. I've heard folks say that even the ones that are reported to be deer resistant, aren't.

Good luck...

[isadora]

Hellebores. From my experience, nothing eats them.

Sandy

[viktoria]

Monkshoods and foxgloves are poisonous. Don't you wish deer would eat them?

Viktoria

[thy]

Victoria

Thanks for the morning gigle

[ShortShadows]

New product out called Nite guard solar(Northern Tool sells them for about $20). It is a small solar powered box that emits a bright red light that deters animals from an area. The bright light resembles eyes to the animal so they stay away. My friend has trouble with deer and is going to try this approach.

[rosemarie]

Let us know how it works, okay?

[paul_in_mn]

Are there any hostas that the deer won't eat?

Plastic ones.

[Chris_W]

Guess what? The deer ate all of my hellebores a few winters ago. And guess what else? One spring a deer ate down all of my monkshood! But most of the time these plants aren't touched.

In my gardens they've never touched the shade loving grasses like Hakonechloa, and they also don't touch any of my ferns. Pulmonaria goes untouched and so does Cimicifuga and Dicentra.

I've seen them eat astilbe and they love tiarella, polygonatum, ligularia, and heuchera.

[kaylyred]

Funny you should mention monkshood. My greyhounds never, and I mean never, eat plants. So, I decided to leave the monkshood that the previous gardener had in my backyard alone. It was behind a fence, and I thought that even if the dogs did take an interest in it for some ridiculous reason, it was out of hounds' reach.

For some reason, the monkshood (which was gorgeous at first) started declining. Fast. I could not for the life of me figure out what was wrong with it, but since it was potentially toxic to my dogs anyhow, I just let it go. Then one day I was out with the dogs in the yard and caught my big greyhound boy, Quin, peeing through the fence...right on the monkshood. I started paying attention to his habits and watching him and, sure enough, every single time he went out into the yard to do his business he hiked a leg and peed through the fence on the monkshood.

It's like he knew.