Before planting sunflowers in an area where deer roam around, a good question to ask is do deer eat sunflowers?
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Deer need something to eat, but you also don’t want them to be eating the beautiful flowers you’re growing! Deer typically will eat most things if there’s not much around during late fall and autumn.
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Do Deer Eat Sunflowers?
Yes, deer do eat sunflowers! This is a favorite snack of theirs, and they will ruin your sunflower patch.
Part of the reason deer love sunflowers is because they’re high in protein. That’s part of why we as humans like them- for their nutrient packed seeds! And deer are no different.
Planting sunflowers is more likely to attract deer than some other flowers. The deer will specifically come because of how good of a source of nutrients these flowers are.
So if you don’t mind having deer eat your sunflowers, then it’s a great idea to plant them where they can eat them!
How to Keep Deer Away From Your Sunflowers
If you don’t want your garden trampled and eaten by deer, there are a few things you can do.
Naturally one of the easiest ways to keep deer from eating sunflowers is to not grow sunflowers, and choose a different plant instead. But that doesn’t work if you actually want these flowers in your garden!
One easy way to keep deer out of your garden is to set up deer netting.
There’s also ultrasonic deer repelling machines you can place in your garden to repel most animals.
Or you can also grow some herbs near the sunflower to try to repel the deer with scents that they don’t like!
So to answer the question of do deer eat sunflowers? Yes, they do! If you’re really concerned about the deer getting into your garden for these plants, try planting them farther away from your other flowers, have a barrier around them, or choose a different bright flower that the deer are less likely to eat.
