Anyone who has deer visiting their garden regularly will know the feeling on seeing freshly munched plants. Whilst you can deerproof your garden (as we have done in some areas) sometimes you just need to find plants that the deer just won’t eat. In the first of a series on plants that have worked for me this post is on Sisyrinchium:
These plants readily self seed if they like your soil, which is lucky because they’re relatively short lived so you will need to keep replenishing your stock. I planted three plants in the space shown above, and after 3 years it looked like this. You can get more ornamental versions with variegated leaves however I’ve not found them as prolific at seeding so I’d not recommend them if you want to fill a large space quickly and cheaply. They’ll mainly flower over summer but the leaves will stay right through the year (including now in January) so you get year round foliage.
To spread them there is no need to do anything complex, just let them seed where they are or scatter seed heads where you want them and you’ll soon have baby plants coming up. They look just like miniature versions of the foliage, so are easy to recognise. These can be dug up and potted on or if the weather is wet just dig them up and pop them straight where you want them. You can thin them out if there are loads in one spot, but there’s no need as one will come to dominate the others.
Do this and you’ll have plenty of this great deer proof plant.