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To the landowner or deer manager, it is critical to effectively manage deer for maximum productivity and antler quality.
One of the most important woodsman skills is to be able to identify and find the plants and foods deer prefer. When I am in the woods I am constantly assessing the availability of prime deer foods, and how much is being utilized by the deer. One of the most common statements I hear about what deer eat is, "Why there is plenty of green stuff for them here, they can't be starving.
Deer and cows represent the opposite end of the spectrum that represents ruminant those that have a four-chambered "stomach" food habits. Viewed from above, cows have a broad nose and wide tongue they use to eat a wide array of plant species, especially grasses. Their rumen 1 st stomach chamber is very large, holding at least 49 gallons of plant and liquid material and is filled with a very diverse population of bacteria, protozoa, yeasts and other organisms that each have a specialty function for digesting specific groups of plants.
Grasses are the most fibrous and indigestible of plants, yet cows easily digest them. Cattle belong to a group of ruminants we call Roughage Eaters. Whitetails, on the other hand, are classified as Concentrate Selectors. From above, the head of a whitetail is sharply pointed to permit reaching into plants and selecting specific plant parts.
Their tongue is long and slender, allowing them to extract succulent stems and leaves. Whitetail foods can be classified as browse leaves and twigs of woody plants , forbs weeds , grasses, nuts and fruits and mushrooms. Each of these food items vary in availability, depending on the time of year and climatic conditions. Although every study proves that whitetails prefer forbs over all food types, these plants cannot be depended on to be around when deer need them.
Forbs generally are more digestible and nutrient-rich. Freezing temperatures and extended dry periods prevent the growth of weeds, so they are an ephemeral food supply at best. The real mainstay food item of deer is browse. Browse plants can be shrubs or young trees within reach of deer. Browse plants will always be available in one form or another, no matter what the weather conditions.
Even though browse plants can lose their leaves during drought or cold weather, their stems and twigs remain reasonably nutritious; unlike weeds that simply disappear. Acorns, nuts and fruits are generally called mast. They supply high-energy sources during times of thermal stress or rapid body and antler growth. Fruits such as grapes, blackberries, mulberry and plums are used by deer as a high-energy source rich in carbohydrates during antler growth.
In fact, digestible energy is the limiting factor for a healthy deer herd. Other soft fruits such as apples and pears provided needed energy in the fall, when deer are storing fat for the winter. The two most important nuts are acorns and chestnuts , but each of these supplies a very different nutritional need. Acorns are high in fat and carbohydrates, but low in protein, while chestnuts are high in protein and carbohydrates.
Deer prefer chestnuts to acorns because chestnuts are lower in tannins, which inhibit digestion. Grasses rarely are a preferred food item of whitetails, except during the early growth stages when the grass shoots are more digestible.
Cereal grains, such as oats, wheat and rye are highly preferred. However, cereal grains have been selectively bred for about 5, years to be more palatable. Lastly, mushrooms are the most overlooked delicacy for what deer eat. Mushrooms supply the second most important element, Phosphorus, as well as protein. You would be surprised how many pounds of mushrooms per acre are produced naturally, even in drier climates. Locating concentrations of mushrooms can help you hone in on prime feeding areas.
Whitetails begin the year in early spring, trying to regain weight lost during the fall rut and ensuing winter. That's when forbs really come into play! They are highly digestible and high in energy, vital minerals and antioxidants. Since phosphorus is in high demand for antler growth and growing fawns, mushrooms become a true prize.
As spring winds down and summer begins, deer shift to browse plants, particularly the 1 st choice plants. Mid and late summer sees a shift in what deer eat to 2 nd choice browse plants and early fruits, such as grapes and berries.
As fall approaches, whitetails must find and consume large quantities of carbohydrate-rich foods such as acorns, chestnuts, apples and pears.
Nuts and mushrooms are high in phosphorus, which is needed to replace what is taken from a buck's flat bones ribs and skull for antler mineralization.
Wildlife biologists classify browse plants into three categories: 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd choice. In each geographic area, there are browse plant species representing these three classifications, and knowing the 1 st choice plants will allow you locate prime deer feeding areas.
It is interesting that some browse species may be a 1 st choice in one geographic area and 2 nd choice in another. Dogwood is considered a 1 st choice plant in eastern Canada, but 2 nd choice in the southeastern U.
In general, the best browse plants are those that have an indeterminate growth pattern; meaning they tend to remain somewhat evergreen and put on new growth when rainfall and temperature conditions permit. These usually are vining plants such as Japanese honeysuckle, greenbrier, blackberry and Alabama supplejack. Less preferred browse plants tend be determinant plants that limit new growth to spring and early summer.
After that, these plants are less digestible. Most state game agencies, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and agricultural universities have publications available on the preferred whitetail food plants in your state. The Quality Deer Management Association offers a poster highlighting preferred species. However, the best way to learn browse plants is to obtain a plant identification book with color photographs, then go to your favorite deer woods and just wonder around looking for signs of browsing.
You can tell the difference between deer and rabbit browsing by the fact that deer having no upper front teeth pinch off leaves and shoots, while rabbits have sharp incisors and leave a characteristic, angled clean cut on the twig.
It will not take you long to find the species that tend to be heavily browsed and those that are not. Give a Gift Subscriber Services. See All Other Magazines. See All Special Interest Magazines. All North American Whitetail subscribers now have digital access to their magazine content.
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Do deer eat bog myrtle –
After that, these plants are less digestible. Most state game agencies, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and agricultural universities have publications available on the preferred whitetail food plants in your state. The Quality Deer Management Association offers a poster highlighting preferred species. However, the best way to learn browse plants is to obtain a plant identification book with color photographs, then go to your favorite deer woods and just wonder around looking for signs of browsing.
You can tell the difference between deer and rabbit browsing by the fact that deer having no upper front teeth pinch off leaves and shoots, while rabbits have sharp incisors and leave a characteristic, angled clean cut on the twig. It will not take you long to find the species that tend to be heavily browsed and those that are not. Give a Gift Subscriber Services.
See All Other Magazines. See All Special Interest Magazines. All North American Whitetail subscribers now have digital access to their magazine content. This means you have the option to read your magazine on most popular phones and tablets. To get started, click the link below to visit mymagnow. Get Digital Access. Subscribe To The Magazine. Digital Now Included!
Subscribe Now. June 03, By Dr. James C. Email Address. Sign Me Up. A New York-based author, Lara Douglass started writing garden information in while managing a plant nursery in Austin, where she completed a Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Texas. Will Deer Eat Crepe Myrtles? By Lara Douglass. Answer: Forsythia is rated as "deer resistant" which means that usually deer don't eat it, not that deer don't eat it at all.
The only plants that deer never eat are poisonous like daffodils and Lily of the Valley. Everything is eaten by deer.
The deer that live in my neighborhood do not eat my coneflowers, but the deer at Rutgers Gardens a few miles away where I tend the herb garden, do eat the coneflowers. As noted in my article, different herds of deer eat different plants.
Answer: Golden chain trees are considered deer resistant because the leaves are toxic. Because different deer herds eat different plants, just purchase one or two plants at a time to see if the deer in your area eat them before you invest in a lot of plants. Deer resistant just means that the deer don't usually eat it, but if there is nothing else to eat, they will eat the "resistant" plants.
The only deer proof plants are plants that are poisonous like daffodils or lily of the valley. Surprisingly, deer chewed up two sedum plants, also weigela that were actually labeled "deer resistant". My Annabelle hydrangea is thoroughly chewed, and they've eaten most of the leaves on a struggling dogwood.
Chased them off with the hose yesterday!! Different deer herds have different diets. The deer in my town don't eat my echinacea, but in a town a few miles down the road, a different herd of deer loves them. Dear eat marigold flowers without eating the leaves. Same with snapdragons. They also eat rudbekia and coneflowers when they are young, emerging from the ground in spring.
However, they rarely eat the flowers. Thus far, the deer have never touched my calla lilies. Nor will they eat heliobores. Deer usually avoid marigolds because they have a strong odor. But if there is nothing else to eat, they will eat marigolds also. Do deers eat marigolds? They have eaten all the other flowers I have planted except my marigolds. A hanging basket is an excellent idea. Different herds eat different plants.
I was surprised to lose my bee balm to hungry deer. Normally, they don't bother herbs with a strong scent. Deer ate my non-stop begonias that we planted away from the house last year so this year I only planted tub right next to porch-1 day later most of the blooms and much of the foliage nibbled off.
Also all the geranium blossoms except one. Guess I will replant the sad remains in a hanging basket. May 6, Well, a deer just chewed up my prize and pricey five year old 4 ft lilac. He ate a dozen of the 15, or so, flower buds and most of the new leaves and growth. It'll probably recover, if he doesn't come back, but I sure lost a year of my favorite shrub.
I live in a mountainous region and the deer are abound. I'm so afraid to plant anything because people say the deer will eat it. This has been a very helpful article.
I will try planting some of your suggestions. I think some of the "discrepancies" might be because not all deer are the same. I live in "black tail deer" land, and they seem to prefer different flowers from those in the Midwest, where my friends have white tail deer. And then, my sister lives near the mountains. She has elk to contend with, and their eating habits are again different.
Sorry, but deer ate up my new lilac bush. The do avoid the rose of Sharon, though. Neat read with good tips on discouraging deer from our gardens.
Would like to link this hub to mine on hosta if you have no objection. I looked out my windoe this morning and the deer had totally eaten my beautiful geranium, impatian and another flowerin plant I had just purchased and not long ago ate all of my hostas. I put a large boston fern there and they haven't eaten that.
Nice list of deer-resistant plants! I'll have to plant some of these since deer eat my shrubs every year. I just started using Deer Off II, which has remedied the situation. It's also approved for organic use, so I can use it around my organic garden. Hey, Thanks for info. We get deer in bkyard. We have a big yard. Next day Mom and I went to get bleeding hearts and forget me not. Well we left camping for 2 weeks. Bog myrtle supports almost 70 species of phytophagous, or leaf-eating, insects, including a large number of moth caterpillars.
In some parts of Scotland, the large invertebrate biomass on bog myrtle has been shown to be beneficial to black grouse Tetrao tetrix — a rare species that is a priority for conservation in the UK, and whose chicks depend on invertebrates as food for the first three weeks of their lives.
Notable moths whose larvae feed on bog myrtle include the argent and sable Rheumaptera hastata , Rannoch brindled beauty Lycia lapponaria , ringed carpet Cleora cinctaria , great brocade Eurois occulta and sweet gale Acronicta euphorbiae , which is named after the plant. All of these feed on other plants as well, but bog myrtle is an important food source for them. The leaves of bog myrtle are mined by the caterpillars of two micro-moths Coleophora lusciniaepennella and Bucculatrix cidarella , and by the larvae of two beetles Ramphus pulicarius and Rhynchaenus iota.
Nymphs as the immature forms are known of the common froghopper Philaenus spumarius feed on a wide variety of plants, and are frequently seen on bog myrtle in the Highlands. They surround themselves with white foam known as cuckoospit created by blowing air through the waste liquid excreted from the sap they suck, and this provides protection from predators and parasites.
Bog myrtle is host to several scale insects, including the nut scale Eulecanium tiliae and the bog myrtle aphid Myzocallis myricae , which sucks the sap of the plant.
Little is known of any mycorrhizal relationships between bog myrtle and fungi , and there are no large fruiting bodies or mushrooms associated with the species. However, several fungi fruit on the leaves and twigs, including twig stunt Ramularia destructiva , a fungus Incrucipulum sulphurellum which produces tiny cream-coloured discs with fringing hairs, and another Ciboria acerina that fruits on overwintered catkins as small brown cups.
A number of mammals feed on bog myrtle, including the mountain hare Lepus timidus , red deer , feral goats Capra hircus and domestic sheep Ovis aries. In North America, the Canadian beaver Castor canadensis feeds on the plant and uses cut stems as building material for its lodges and dams.
Bog myrtle – Braemar Highland Experience
As a widespread and common species it is unlikely to be at risk, and is not considered to be of conservation concern. Bog myrtle, which is also known sometimes as sweet gale, is a woody deciduous perennial shrub in the Myricaceae family. It can grow from about 60 to over cm tall, but seldom reaches that height in Scotland today because of its palatability to large herbivores such as red deer Cervus elaphus. With a spreading, multiple-branching habit and the ability to reproduce by suckering, it occurs in dense clusters or thickets in areas of wet, boggy ground.
The leaves, which emerge from their buds in May each year, are cm in length, pale green in colour, and are narrow and tapering at the base, widening towards an oval tip. They are slightly toothed at the outer end and turn a dull yellow in October, before being shed for the winter. A key feature of bog myrtle is the presence of nitrogen-fixing nodules on its roots.
These are formed through a symbiotic partnership with filamentous bacteria in the genus Frankia , and bog myrtle is defined as an actinorhizal plant because of this. Such plants characteristically grow in nitrogen-poor environments — wet, boggy ground in the case of bog myrtle.
Through their ability to absorb and fix nitrogen, actinorhizal plants play a crucial role in enriching soils and enabling the process of ecological succession to take place, with more nutrient-demanding species able to grow subsequently. In this, bog myrtle performs a very similar function to the alder tree Alnus glutinosa , which has nitrogen-fixing nodules from a related bacterium Frankia alni on its roots. Bog myrtle flowers appear just before the new leaves in spring, and the species is usually dioecious, meaning that male and female flowers occur on separate plants.
However, in a given population, there are likely to be some monoecious plants with single individuals having both male and female flowers and hermaphroditic plants, where the flowers themselves exhibit both male and female characteristics. The male flowers or catkins emerge from upright, orange-brown buds that are about 1 cm in length, and have distinctive bracts or scales in between the pollen-producing stamens. Female flowers are smaller and have several red tufts on them, and look somewhat similar to the female flowers of hazel Corylus avellana.
Typically, many more male flowers occur in a population than females, making bog myrtle unusual in this regard. Both the leaves and the fruit are covered in yellowish glands that secrete an aromatic oil, giving the plant a characteristic sweet smell when the leaves are rubbed or crushed. Although bog myrtle produces seeds, which are dispersed by water, its main method of reproduction in Scotland is by suckering. New plants grow up from special roots, called rhizomes, of an existing plant, and this gives rise to thick clumps, with many individuals occurring closely together.
The rhizomes are woody and act as nutrient stores for the plant during the winter. Bog myrtle supports almost 70 species of phytophagous, or leaf-eating, insects, including a large number of moth caterpillars. In some parts of Scotland, the large invertebrate biomass on bog myrtle has been shown to be beneficial to black grouse Tetrao tetrix — a rare species that is a priority for conservation in the UK, and whose chicks depend on invertebrates as food for the first three weeks of their lives.
Notable moths whose larvae feed on bog myrtle include the argent and sable Rheumaptera hastata , Rannoch brindled beauty Lycia lapponaria , ringed carpet Cleora cinctaria , great brocade Eurois occulta and sweet gale Acronicta euphorbiae , which is named after the plant. All of these feed on other plants as well, but bog myrtle is an important food source for them. The confusion arises because there being several species of Thuja , and they show different resistance.
White Cedar, Thuja occidentalis , found in Eastern states, is often eaten by deer, but Western Redcedar, Thuja plicata , is normally left alone. Since this is one of the parents of the popular Green Giant Cedar, that plants resistance to deer is well-documented. For shady areas Hemlock Tsuga makes a beautiful hedge that will be left alone by deer.
Soft-foliaged Japanese Cedar Cryptomeria is also seldom bothered, and they different varieties of this plant are beautiful evergreens for any garden. Thuja Green Giant — Because it has genes from the Redcedar, this plant, the best hedging plant you can grow, is also resistant to deer.
Holly Ilex — Almost all hollies are left alone by deer. No wonder, with their spiny leaves. Both American holly and the different kinds of Japanese holly are notable for being ignored. Colorado Blue Spruce Picea pungens — Not only wonderful with its dramatic steely blue needles, these trees are left alone. Planted more closely, and trimmed from time to time, they make tough hedges and screening plants. Spartan Juniper Juniperus chinensis — As well as making wonderful clipped specimens, this tough juniper grows into a beautiful drought-resistant hedge that animals leave alone.
Turning to flowering trees , besides the issue of winter damage, some trees have fruit that attractive deer, or even moose and elk. Apples — the eating kind and crab-apples too — are very popular, and deer will stand on their hind-legs to reach those tasty treats , often breaking branches at the same time. Since the bark of apples is a favorite of mice as well, finding a substitute for them is a good idea. Cherry and plum trees of all kinds are also popular winter food for deer and mice , so they are not good choices if you have problems with your local wildlife.
Here are some ideas for beautiful flowering trees that deer and mice will leave alone. Crape-Myrtle Lagerstroemia — With so many varieties is many colors, these are prime choices if deer are your problem. Their continuous flowering and love of heat are also big positive features. Magnolia — Both the deciduous and evergreen types of magnolia, with their spectacular flowers, are left alone by deer to bloom in gorgeous white or pinks. Serviceberry Amelanchier — This native shrub has beautiful white flowers in early spring, and edible berries, but it is usually left alone by deer.
Flowering Dogwood Cornus — Smothered in white or pink blooms, all the many kinds of these beautiful trees will generally be left alone, as also will the fruits.
