As many gardeners here will tell you, the deer population in Northeast Ohio seems to be prolific and ravenous. I have had my own struggles while trying to protect my flowering plants from the deer. This year I discovered, quite by accident, a plant that may act as a deterrent to the deer or more correctly as a bait. In recent years I had relied on my older dog to police the area between the woods and my flower gardens, and the deer seemed to have found safer pastures elsewhere. But since she passed away two years ago, the deer have returned making nightly visits to nibble my sunflowers, cucumbers and zinnias.
We had such a wet spring and summer, I was unable to get many weeds and other volunteers pulled out, and I had an abundance of this dark red ornamental amaranth in most of the rows of my annuals and perennials. These were volunteers that seeded from a previous years small patch of two ornamental varieties I cultivated. In drier years I would have weeded most of this out. Early in the season, the deer were eating the tops of my zinnias, but as the amaranth matured I noticed that something was eating the leaves of this plant and my zinnias were being left in tact. This pattern has continued through the late summer and into fall. I have not had to net or spray my zinnias since early August.
We had such a wet spring and summer, I was unable to get many weeds and other volunteers pulled out, and I had an abundance of this dark red ornamental amaranth in most of the rows of my annuals and perennials. These were volunteers that seeded from a previous years small patch of two ornamental varieties I cultivated. In drier years I would have weeded most of this out. Early in the season, the deer were eating the tops of my zinnias, but as the amaranth matured I noticed that something was eating the leaves of this plant and my zinnias were being left in tact. This pattern has continued through the late summer and into fall. I have not had to net or spray my zinnias since early August.