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CROTON-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. If youre feeling defeated by the sight of your beheaded begonias or are accustomed to the sight of sticks where your holly once stood, theres no need to give up on flora because of hungry fauna.
The Croton Conservation Advisory Council is offering a free class on deer-resistant landscaping, and the unrivaled attendance of the CCACs last sustainable-gardening class predicts a packed house at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Croton Free Library.
We do many projects that are primarily deer-resistant. The demand for deer-resistant planting is never-ending, said Jan Johnsen, owner of Johnsen Landscapes and Pools. Johnsen is also the chair of the CCAC.
Johnsen calls certain high-demand plants, such as the Manhattan Euonymus, deer Twinkies.
Its a beautiful evergreen that everybody wants, but its the first thing they eat, she says. Other hot spots for deer lunch are holly, roses and Yuws.
Im continuously finding that my own personal garden is an experimental garden in many ways, but particularly in deer-resistance, said Laura McKillop, speaker at the deer-resistant gardening class.
McKillop said she struggles to understand the psychology of deer and why they favor certain plants, but she can offer alternatives to those much-beloved constants in landscaping.
Roses are one of the things, people think because they have thorns on them they wont eat them. The truth is theyll eat the thorns and not even notice, and an alternative that I have considered is peony, she said.
McKillop has prepared a handout on plants that are deer-resistant. She cautions that nurseries are not the best place to seek advice on deer-resistant gardening because vendors are wary of recommending a plant as deer-resistant, only to have it eaten two days later.
For those who cannot attend the event, McKillop recommends 50 Beautiful Deer-Resistant Plants, by Westchester resident Ruth Clausen.
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