One cold morning I found fresh deer tracks pressed into the frost by the woods edge. I checked the young arborvitae in that damp back corner. Its lower foliage was stripped to bare twigs. The row of Nellie Stevens hollies beside it stood full and green. The deer had picked one plant and skipped the other.
If you want a deer-resistant hedge, lead with hollies, boxwood, or certain junipers rather than arborvitae. These hold their shape where deer roam. Your privacy screen stays full instead of opening up at the bottom each winter.
No plant is truly deer-proof, and that matters more than most plant tags admit. When deer get hungry enough in late winter, they will sample almost anything green. What you can control is how often they choose your hedge over the next yard. A tough species shifts those odds in your favor.
Foliage is the whole story here. Deer pass over tough, spiny, or strong-smelling leaves and go straight for soft new growth. Holly leaves are stiff and prickly. Juniper smells sharp, and boxwood carries a bitter scent. Most arborvitae offers the opposite. Its soft, mild foliage gets treated like a salad bar.
The arborvitae gap is real. Penn State Extension rates most arborvitae as readily browsed by deer. Only Green Giant earns a somewhat deer-resistant mark. So where deer pressure runs high, build your deer-resistant hedge around hollies first. Treat plain arborvitae as the risky pick that opens gaps.
You do not have to plant just one species either. Build a deer-proof privacy hedge around hollies, then fill in with junipers and boxwood. This mixed screen gives you better odds than a single row of one plant. If deer breach one species, the others still hold the line and keep your view blocked.
I prefer this mix for another reason. It saves you from a single pest or disease wiping out the whole hedge. Boxwood blight can move fast through a dense planting. Spacing different plants between them slows any outbreak down. You get a tougher screen and a more interesting one to look at, with holly berries for the birds and a soft blue cast from the juniper.
Pick your hollies for the spot, not just the label. Nellie Stevens grows fast and dense, which makes it my first choice for a quick screen. Inkberry holly stays smaller and works for a low hedge along a path. Both shrug off deer better than almost any arborvitae you can buy. Junipers like Spartan and Skyrocket give you the same toughness in a narrow, upright shape.
Protect young plants no matter which species you pick. Deer damage is worst on tender new growth. A hedge in its first two years has almost nothing else. A short fence or wire cages around each plant keep deer off through those early seasons. Leave them on until the foliage toughens up and the lower branches turn woody.
A scent or taste repellent helps during that first winter too. Spray it on every few weeks, and switch brands now and then so the deer never settle into one routine. This buys your young plants time without much cost or effort on your part.
Once your holly or deer resistant evergreen matures, those woody lower branches turn far less tempting. So start with a tough species, shield it while it settles in, and you end up with a full screen that deer walk past instead of eat. That beats replacing chewed-up arborvitae every spring for years on end.
Read the full article: Privacy Hedge Plants: A Complete Guide
