Planting defensively

Deer- and rabbit-resistant annuals (from our own benches)

First, the honest part: there is no such thing as a deer-proof plant. A hungry deer in a dry June will taste anything once, and a fawn tastes everything twice. But deer and rabbits are creatures of preference, and some plants rank so low on the menu they're usually left alone. Everything below is something we actually grow.

Sun bloomers they usually skip

Lantana, salvia, and heliotrope lead the list — pungent, and in heliotrope's case genuinely toxic, so browsers learn fast. Vinca (annual vinca) carries bitter alkaloids nothing wants a second bite of. Marigolds earn their old-wives reputation on scent, zinnias and gomphrena chew like sandpaper and paper, and cleome is sticky and smelly — a double no. Round out a border with angelonia, ageratum, celosia, cosmos, cuphea, snapdragons, verbena, dianthus, and sweet alyssum — all rated as seldom bothered.

Foliage and shade choices

Dusty miller is wool in a deer's mouth; Persian Shield and Euphorbia Glitz (milky sap) go untouched. Geraniums defend themselves with scented leaves, canna with sheer toughness, and ornamental peppers with, well, being peppers. In shadier spots, begonias and lobelia are among the few bloomers browsers reliably pass over.

The herb border: your best fence

Nearly the whole herb bench is a repellent in disguise: rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, lavender, chives, dill, fennel, citronella, lemon grass, and mint (in a pot!). Planting a scented ring of herbs around the vegetable garden is the oldest trick in the book because it works more often than not. One exception rabbits will find: parsley — to a rabbit, that's a salad bar.

The candy list — what to protect

Know the other side of the menu too. Impatiens and SunPatiens, pansies, petunias and calibrachoa, and sweet potato vine are the annuals deer and rabbits actively seek out (hostas hold that title among perennials). Plant these close to the house, inside fencing, or where the dog patrols — and put the resistant plants on the property's wild edge.

Reading the damage

Not sure who's eating? Rabbits snip low with a clean 45° cut, like tiny pruners, and love tender new growth. Deer tear — ragged, chewed edges from ground level up to about four feet. That matters because the fixes differ: a 2-foot rabbit fence with the bottom pinned or buried stops one; nothing under 8 feet reliably stops the other, which is why repellents (rotated, reapplied after rain) do the real work against deer.