Herbs versus the animal kingdom

Salvia officinalis 'Tricolor'. Deer-resistant.

One garden that I maintain stands out above all others as the most challenging in the animal control department. My client feeds the deer in her backyard. I should say, my client feeds an entire Noah's ark of animals in her backyard. Rolling the wheelbarrow around the corner and down the path causes the rushing, clattering, crashing sound of mass departure.

Let me paint you a picture. Occasionally, I must defer to the skunk: if he is coming up the path, I do not continue down it. Sometimes, there are fawns asleep in the compost heap. And... I once witnessed a pair of juvenile woodchucks tearing through the yard. The second little fatty was in hot pursuit of the first, who had a treasure clutched in his jaws: one of those red rubber Kong dog toys, I am quite sure. Pure mayhem.

If it weren't for the fact that my client's dedicated husband always has his finger on the trigger of the deer repellent squirt bottle, there would be no garden at all.

The heaviest pressure is on a pair of small flower beds outside client's husband's office. Either he doesn't spray this area, or the stone-wall-resident woodchuck has grown to appreciate a meal spritzed with that nasty putrescent-egg-solids potion. Either way, these beds have been steadily grazed to the ground. Each year I replace the disappeared plants with something I think will be more critter resistant, and this season, I actually gained some ground.

They do not like herbs! While my old standbys for deer-resistant plants - beebalm, yarrow, and ornamental salvia - have all been sampled, enjoyed, and subsequently cropped, the lavender and culinary sage appear to still - in autumn! - be in possession of all of their parts.

Lavandula angustifolia (English lavendar),
resistant to dog-toy-toting woodchucks.