"Know your enemy" is my mantra here on Creek Road where the deer peer in the kitchen windows, perhaps seeking coffee to go with the salad bar. A state game biologist in Connecticut once told me that if you fertilized just two rows in the center of a 2 acre bean field that the deer would eat the fertilized rows for preference. So yes, nutritional value is a factor. Pregnant and nursing does eat the new growth on roses in my garden, but once the does stop lactating, leave the rose bushes alone. Look at a deer skull (flip it upside down, and you don't need the mandible) and you'll see there are no teeth to the rear, and there's a nice hollow about where we have our soft palate - I guess that's how deer manage thorny things like roses, and perhaps even stringy things such as yucca (which I am convinced they use like floss after eating softer, juicier plants.). Deer, so I've been told, do not digest their food with stomach acids as we do. Instead, they have enzymes, which vary from herd to herd depending on what they eat. Does teach their fawns what mommy finds palatable, and the young ones generally follow family tradition. But if they start eating something new the enzyme composition will alter. So deer can be adaptable to what's available. Fritillaria imperialis and F. meleagris are untouched in my garden. Amaryllidaceae must be highly unpalatable / poisonous, since they are generally uneaten, as are many Ranunculaceae. Other categories of plants usually passed over in favor of tastier items: those with highly flavored / scented foliage = most herbs. Fuzzy leaves = lamb's ears, Stachys byzantina, and even, I can testify, Rhododendron yakusimanum. Ferns. Ornamental grasses. Milorganite is my preferred repellent at this time of year. Since it is odoriferous, and I scatter the little beads on the ground, it remains effective as plants continue to grow. Anything sprayed on the plants must A) be reapplied as plants grow, and B) be reapplied after a heavy rain. Gardening is such a joy. <grin> Judy, who having finished lunch is headed back out to the garden