Pacific coast bulbs deer don't favour?

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Sat, 21 May 2005 07:10:12 PDT
Hi,

One wonders when seeing bulbs blooming in the wild why the deer haven't 
eaten them when they will eat them in most gardens even when as Jane points 
out there are a lot of other food possibilities. The ones growing on cliffs 
seem to get an obvious pass and growing through shrubs that might make them 
less accessible. But there are others that seem really easy to reach you 
sometimes see. Maybe it is the nutritional aspect of garden plants 
(fertilized, watered).

A lot of public gardens I'm familiar with eventually resort to deer 
fencing. How about Zigadenus? It's supposed to be poisonous and I can't 
remember it getting eaten by deer. Z. fremontii is having a great year in 
the wild and in my garden with all the late rain this year. It is a very 
attractive plant. The local timber company cleared a portion of land 
alongside the road and near their office a year or so ago. It looked 
terrible at the time and we wondered why as usually they do that kind of 
work where the public can't easily see it and leave buffers along the road. 
We speculated that they were creating a fire break. This year there are 
hundreds of Zigadenus growing in that spot surrounded by French broom. They 
must have been there all the time, but it just got too shady for them to 
bloom well. The deer seem to be leaving them alone.

Mary Sue


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