Annual geraniums, or more correctly pelargoniums, are lovely, long-blooming plants that come in a wide variety. These plants are luckily not attractive to deer or most other garden pests, and they are rather simple to grow. Your hostas, strawberries, and tulips would be highly preferred by deer as food sources. Of course, a deer can eat any plant if it is hungry enough, including pelargoniums. The temptation will rely on the lack of food, which worsens from October to February during the colder seasons.
Pelargoniums are categorized as occasionally injured by Rutgers University on their rating scale, which ranges from seldom damaged to frequently severely damaged. The bitter flavor, strong aroma, and fuzzy leaves of the majority of pelargonium varieties are repulsive to deer. The geranium budworm, also known as the tobacco budworm, is a more frequent pest for these plants. The geranium budworm consumes the buds and petals of geraniums, giving the blooms a ragged, chewed appearance. Additionally vulnerable to mites, aphids, sawflies, and thrips are geraniums.
The flowering plant known as true geraniums, also referred to as hardy cranesbill, is quite different. This perennial, in contrast to pelargoniums, is frost resistant and grows in spreading clumps. Deer avoid the majority of hardy cranesbill varieties because of their aroma and leaf texture. This includes Geranium macrorrhizum. Deer typically graze on Geranium endressii, therefore it should be placed cautiously if deer are a problem in your community.
What can I do to prevent deer from consuming my geraniums?
There are numerous deer repellent techniques that you can attempt, but none of them is 100 percent certain to work. You can use a combination of these methods to make your flower beds more secure.
Protect Your Geraniums with Other Plants
You can add a variety of plants to your yard to discourage deer from nibbling on your geraniums. Utilizing the power of these plants is generally chosen over using fences to block views, and it gives a landscape some eye-catching variation. Daffodils and foxglove are toxic to deer. Lamb’s ear has a texture they don’t like. And other plants have such overpowering aromas that deer are more likely to avoid them (sage, basil, mint, lavender).
Protect your geraniums and other desired plant life in your garden by include these plants.
Make Your Yard Less Appealing
A deer will leave an area if they don’t feel safe there. You only need to give them the sense that they are in danger.
If you have a dog, make sure that it spends a lot of time in or near the garden. You may even scatter some of their fur about the area to serve as a reminder of the dog’s presence to the nearby deer.
If you want to make a major shift, change the landscape. Making your yard more difficult to navigate involves adding levels, steps, slopes, and other variations in the landscape. Deer won’t approach your geraniums if they don’t care about your yard.
If you have a garden on your home, make sure to harvest your produce as soon as it is ready. If left out for too long, a deer might mistake this for an open-air buffet. Your geraniums might be the next thing the deer eat if they’ve already determined that your yard is the place to be.
Install a Fence
Not everyone is a good fit for fencing. Fencing is one of the most efficient techniques to keep deer away despite its high cost and unsightly appearance. You have probably seen the most common sort of fencing, which is made of wire mesh. Metal and occasionally polypropylene are used to construct these deer barriers. Because polypropylene mesh is virtually undetectable, it solves the aesthetic problems that some people have with fencing.
Another common option for people who don’t want an unsightly fence in their yard is electric fencing. These fences essentially use bait to entice deer to posts. Once activated, these poles shock the deer with a surprisingly modest electric charge. This acts more as a behavior modifier than as a barrier. Electric fencing is not thought to be as effective as a physical barrier fence, but a deer can be swiftly trained to avoid your yard this way.
A chain link fence or a wooden privacy fence might be used to enclose your yard if you’ve been thinking about doing so.
The placement of your geraniums high up, away from deer, is an additional choice. Geraniums in hanging baskets are discussed here.
Make or Buy a Repellent
The market offers a wide variety of repellents, from inexpensive soap bars to specialist, synthetic commercial goods. Here are a few choices from Amazon:
Do deer consume petunias and geraniums?
The local deer populations like munching on bushes, plants, fruit trees, nuts, and acorns as they are herbivores.
Leafy vegetation and several kinds of flowers are favorites among deer. Petunias unfortunately provide a wonderful target for deer because they have both of those.
Deer consume many different kinds of flowers, including pansies, roses, hydrangeas, marigolds, geraniums, and more. Petunias are just one of the flowers they like to eat.
What animals in the wild eat geraniums?
The primary pests that consume geranium buds, blooms, and foliage are geranium budworms. Geraniums are also eaten by greenflies and Japanese beetles. Geraniums are consumed by rats, rabbits, and javelinas.
Beautiful, little plants with vibrant blossoms are geraniums. Sun-loving plants like geraniums bloom profusely in direct sunshine.
Cranesbill is another name for geranium. Although they are simple to grow, geraniums do have certain problems. Animals and pests enjoy eating geranium plants.
Let’s look at ways to manage pests and stop animals from consuming your prized geraniums.
August 11th, 2020
So, after trying to cultivate near deer for a year and a half, here’s what I’ve discovered.
1. Deer are choosy. That’s accurate. You may have heard (or witnessed) that when deer are sufficiently hungry, they will eat just about anything. And that’s also true.
Deer, however, clearly prefer certain vegetation to others. They begin with their top choices (including hosta, daylilies, tulips, eastern arborvitae, azaleas, young yews, roses, and rhododendrons, to name a few) and work their way down the list until they run out of room.
On the one hand, that implies that nothing you plant is secure from turning into a deer desert in the future. On the other hand, you have a larger chance of their filling up in someone else’s yard the lower you remain on their list of preferences.
2.) Different deer have different tastes. I think different deer have varied food preferences at different times, much like people do. That may help to explain why some individuals assert that deer never consume certain plants, like panicle hydrangeas, while others assert that they were the first plant they chose for their yard.
The taste or smell differences between different species or kinds of the same plant also appear to be sufficient to either improve or worsen their position on the deer’s menu.
That is supported by the observation that deer rarely eat Geranium macrorrhizum, infrequently eat Geranium sanguineum and Geranium cantabrigiense, but commonly consume Geranium endressii. I highly recommend consulting Rutgers University’s venerable deer-resistant plant list.
That is what I observed in my own yard, where some of my coleus species were eaten by deer but not others (at least yet).
They also consumed almost half of each of my three arrowwood viburnums, but none of my four Korean spice viburnums (yet).
And I’ve observed deer pass a plant for months without ever touching it before gnawing it almost to the ground one particular night.
Perhaps they were simply more hungry than normal when they passed the plant at that particular time. Another possibility is that the concerned eater was just thinking, “I’m really in the mood for a delicious spirea tonight!
3. Seasonal preferences for deer change. This is a sensible choice. Throughout the growth season, deer can also fill up on fresh, flavorful, and tender perennial and shrub foliage, as well as flowers and vegetables.
In the summer, deer may leave most evergreens alone, but this is when it happens.
When the buffet abruptly disappears in the winter, things become considerably harder. Deer will then gravitate for your Hinoki cypress, that delicate new cryptomeria, or the leathery, prickly leaves of evergreen hollies.
When there is nothing else to eat in January, I’ve even witnessed animals eating rose canthorns and all.
This is why deer repellents and fencing are so helpful as winter approaches. Even the things you believed were “safe” could become targets in the cold.
4.) Deer become less fussy in hot and dry weather. Another one that makes sense is this one.
Those fastidious deer fill up on their delicate favorites when everything is lush and green. However, the lower rung of plants starts to look better when their favorites turn brown, wilt, or lose some flavor due to the heat.
As things deteriorated, my deer switched from perennials and annuals to plants they hadn’t harmed since planting, including two new American fringe trees, a new spirea, a weigela, three dwarf panicle hydrangeas, and a weigela.
Although deer didn’t completely destroy them like they did the annual geraniums (actually Pelargoniums), begonias, coleus, wandering jew, and begonias. Although it appeared as though they weren’t really enjoying it, at least the food was fresh.
5.) Repellants and fencing both work. Other than converting to plastic, fencing deer out is the greatest way to prevent them from devouring your plants.
On that front, we have a wide range of options, including electric ones, parallel ones spaced four feet apart, and strands of fishing line that are designed to confuse them.
Deer are capable of leaping a six-foot fence with ease, but I believe my fence has at least deterred them because they cannot see what is on the other side. I really hope they don’t use periscopes or grow new nerves.
Even to pretty “deer-resistant plants out front where things are in the open, I’ve had a lot of plant damage, but there has been no deer damage in my fence-protected backyard (yet).
We’ve both had success sprinkling deer repellant on plants, as have my neighbors. Keeping the spray fresh and, ideally, switching brands can help prevent deer from developing a taste or smell aversion. I’ve had success with the Bobbex brand.
The deer repellent on my neighbor’s front-yard hostas wasn’t maintained while she was abroad for two weeks last month. You can infer what took place.
Who is consuming my geranium plants?
Why Are My Geraniums Being Eaten? You’re probably dealing with geranium budworms or geranium sawflies if your geranium has holes in the leaves or buds. Neem oil, insecticides like Spinosad, handpicking, and planting in sterilized soil are a few examples of control measures.
Are wild geraniums eaten by deer?
A perennial herbaceous plant, Geranium maculatum is native to deciduous woodlands in eastern North America’s zones 3 to 8, including southern Ontario, Georgia, western Oklahoma, and the eastern part of the Dakotas. Except for a few northern counties, it can be found throughout much of Wisconsin. With its larger blossoms than the other species, the wild geranium is the most showy of the native geraniums. This clump-forming plant in the geranium family (Geraniaceae), also known as alum root, alum bloom, cranesbill, spotted cranesbill, wild cranesbill, spotted geranium, wood geranium, and other local colloquial names, is typically fairly prevalent in dense clusters in natural woodland openings.
These colonies are made up of collections of durable clones that originated from distinct plants. It rarely appears in disturbed regions and is a weak colonizer. Native Americans utilized G. maculatum as a medicine to cure open wounds and sores as well as diarrhea.
The flowering stems of plants emerge from dense, horizontal rhizomes with a loose cluster of basal leaves. They grow into a mound of 12-28-inch-tall and 12- to 18-inch-wide dark green foliage.
The long, white-haired petioles bearing the palmately lobed basal leaves emerge in the spring. Although occasionally two of the lobes are severely cleft enough to appear as seven lobes, each broad leaf up to 6 inches across typically contains five deep lobes. The entire leaf margin is unevenly and coarsely serrated or cleft. While the top leaf surface is coated in fine white hairs, the lower leaf surface contains coarse white hairs similar to those on the petiole.
In late spring to early summer, wild geranium blooms for about a month (occasionally longer in milder conditions). The winter bud at the terminals of the rhizomes contains flower buds that were established the previous year. The opposing, short-stalked stem leaves on each erect, mainly unbranched flower stem are identical to, but smaller than, the basal leaves, typically with just three lobes. The upright blooms are produced in loose clusters of two to five at the apex of hairy stems (a corymb or floppy umbel). A single pistil with five carpels is surrounded by a single flower that is 1-11/2 inches diameter, five rounded petals, five green sepals, and ten yellow stamens. The petals’ fine, somewhat darker-colored lines that run along their length serve as nectar guides, and they are often rose-pink to lavender in color, however they can occasionally be darker purple or even white. The most frequent pollinators are honeybees, bumblebees, numerous varieties of local solitary bees, and syrphid flies, however ants and beetles frequently visit the flowers.
Three to five weeks after blossoming, unique fruit capsules appear. Each is made up of five basal cells, each bearing one seed with a reticulated surface, and a tall, central column that resembles the beak of a crane.
When this dehiscent fruit is ready, the carpels twist upward and backward and spring open, ejecting the seeds 10–30 feet from the mother plant. After the seeds have ripened in the summer, the plants may begin to become dormant. In ideal circumstances, leaves will stay green all season long, but if the soil dries up, they may turn yellow or lay dormant for the summer.
Wild geranium can be grown as an ornamental plant in gardens even though it is a native to our region. For the optimum growth, plant it in rich soil with lots of organic matter, in full sun or moderate shade, and with lots of moisture. The more sun a plant gets, the more flowers it produces. Under ideal growing conditions, this plant will naturalize, although it is never invasive. It doesn’t need a lot of maintenance. Since plants typically do not repeat bloom, deadheading is not advised.
After flowering, the foliage can be softly shaped and shorn back. There aren’t many pests that affect this plant, however rust, leaf spot, and aphid infestations are all possible. Flowers will be eaten by deer (and occasionally the foliage).
Use G. maculatum in open woodland gardens, native plant gardens, and shady border areas. It can be gathered in a bulk to cover the ground. It frequently grows alongside bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora), bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), false Solomon’s seal (Smilacina racemosa), Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum spp. ), ferns, Trillium grandiflorum, common mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum), and forest phlox in its natural habitat (Phlox divaricata). It pairs nicely in gardens with these and other native plants found in open woods as well as with exotic ornamentals like violets, goat’s beard, columbine, foam flowers, and various species of aquilegia and tiarella.
There are a few G. maculatum cultivars available:
- White blooms are found on “Album.”
- ‘Elizabeth Ann’ features blue-lavender blooms and dark brown leaves.
- A variety called “Espresso” has reddish-brown foliage and pale pink blooms.
Wild geranium can be propagated from seed or by dividing the rhizomes. Early spring or late fall are good times to divide roots by cutting them at right angles. You can buy seed or gather it naturally. The dehiscent fruits should be harvested before splitting open (about a month after flowering, as they start to darken), and they should be placed in a paper bag to retain the seeds until the fruits rupture open. To germinate, seed must be stratified; the longer the cold time, the higher the germination rate. Fall is the best time to sow outdoors because there is no need for artificial stratification. Young plants often bloom in their second or third year in the wild, but when planted in a garden, they frequently do so in the first year. University of Wisconsin-Madison student Susan Mahr