Only 28 landscape shrubs are rated “Rarely Damaged” by deer in the largest published trial of the question — out of 134 assessed. They include common boxwood, arrowwood viburnum, bayberry, Japanese pieris, Oregon grape holly, Russian cypress, fragrant sumac, sweet box and Japanese plum yew. Seventy-five more are rated B, twenty-six C, and five D. The grades come from Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, which scores shrubs on an A–D scale from field observation. If you are buying shrubs for a garden with deer in it, the grade matters more than the list — and most published lists never tell you which grade they are quoting.
That gap is the whole problem. Below is the full A-list, the swaps worth making today, the four A-rated plants you should think twice about anyway, and the part nobody covers: where in the garden each one belongs.
What “deer resistant” actually means
The Rutgers list was compiled with nursery and landscape professionals, Rutgers NJAES Cooperative Extension staff and Rutgers Master Gardeners. It uses four grades:
| Grade | Rutgers wording | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| A | Rarely Damaged | Plant it anywhere, including the approach to the house |
| B | Seldom Severely Damaged | Safe under light and moderate deer pressure; browsed in a hard winter |
| C | Occasionally Severely Damaged | Only with fencing, repellents or protective placement |
| D | Frequently Severely Damaged | Deer food. Plant it and you are feeding them |
The list carries its own disclaimer, and it is the most important sentence on the page: “Realizing that no plant is deer proof… the success of any of these plants in the landscape will depend on local deer populations and weather conditions.”
So deer resistance is not a property of a plant. It is a probability, and it moves with how many deer you have and how hungry they are. A herd in a hard February will strip things it ignored all summer. Grade A means “rarely,” not “never.”
The 28 shrubs rated A
Hardiness ranges below are typical for the species; named cultivars vary, so check the tag.
| Shrub | Latin name | Hardy to about | Design role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arrowwood viburnum | Viburnum dentatum | Zone 2–3 | Informal screen, native hedge, bird food |
| Bayberry | Myrica pensylvanica | Zone 3 | Salt- and wind-tolerant screen, coastal beds |
| Bush cinquefoil | Potentilla fruticosa | Zone 2–3 | Long-flowering low mass, hot dry edges |
| Russian cypress | Microbiota decussata | Zone 2–3 | Evergreen groundcover for shade — rare and useful |
| Red elderberry | Sambucus racemosa | Zone 3 | Woodland edge, wildlife planting |
| Russian olive | Elaeagnus angustifolia | Zone 2–3 | See the warning below |
| Moonglow juniper | Juniperus scopulorum ‘Moonglow’ | Zone 3 | Blue-grey evergreen column, vertical accent |
| Prince of Wales juniper | Juniperus horizontalis ‘Prince of Wales’ | Zone 3 | Flat evergreen groundcover, slopes and verges |
| Fragrant sumac | Rhus aromatica | Zone 3 | Bank stabiliser, autumn colour, tough ground |
| Barberry | Berberis sp. | Zone 4 | See the warning below |
| Mountain pieris | Pieris floribunda | Zone 4 | Compact evergreen for cold gardens |
| Heather | Calluna sp. | Zone 4 | Low evergreen carpet, acid soil, winter colour |
| Devil’s walking stick | Aralia spinosa | Zone 4 | Architectural specimen, tropical-looking foliage |
| Daphne | Daphne sp. | Zone 4–7, species-dependent | Scented small shrub beside a door or path |
| Blue mist shrub | Caryopteris × clandonensis | Zone 5 | Late-summer blue, pollinators, sunny front of bed |
| Butterfly bush | Buddleia sp. | Zone 5 | See the warning below |
| Common boxwood | Buxus sempervirens | Zone 5 | Evergreen structure, clipped hedge, parterre |
| Japanese pieris | Pieris japonica | Zone 5 | Evergreen foundation planting, spring flower |
| Drooping leucothoe | Leucothoe fontanesiana | Zone 5 | Evergreen under-planting for shade |
| Oregon grape holly | Mahonia aquifolium | Zone 5 | Spiny evergreen, yellow flower, blue fruit |
| Broom | Cytisus sp. | Zone 5 | See the warning below |
| Heath | Erica sp. | Zone 5 | Winter-flowering carpet, acid soil |
| Japanese plum yew | Cephalotaxus harringtonia | Zone 6 | The yew substitute — see below |
| Sweet box | Sarcococca hookeriana | Zone 6 | Deep shade evergreen, intense winter scent |
| John T. Morris holly | Ilex × ‘John T. Morris’ | Zone 6 | Evergreen screen, male pollinator for Lydia Morris |
| Lydia Morris holly | Ilex × ‘Lydia Morris’ | Zone 6 | Evergreen pyramid, red berries |
| Japanese skimmia | Skimmia japonica | Zone 7 | Shade evergreen, winter bud colour |
| Leatherleaf mahonia | Mahonia bealei | Zone 7 | See the warning below |
Match that against what grows in your hardiness zone before you shortlist — a grade A rating is worthless on a plant that dies in your winter. Our zone guides list the full palette for zone 5, zone 6 and zone 7.
Where most lists go wrong: A is not B
Take any well-known deer-resistant shrub list and check it against the grades. Viburnum, spirea, forsythia, weigela, deutzia, abelia, beautybush, coralberry, crape myrtle, lilac, elderberry and rose of Sharon are all routinely recommended as deer resistant. Rutgers rates every one of them B — seldom severely damaged — not A.
B is not a bad grade. Under light or moderate deer pressure a B-rated shrub is usually fine, and B plants carry most of the flower and seasonal interest in this palette. But B means the plant gets browsed when the pressure rises, and it rises predictably: late winter, a deep snow year, a new development pushing a herd into your street. If your garden backs onto woodland and you see deer most mornings, a bed built entirely of B-rated shrubs will look chewed by March.
The practical rule: A-rated plants carry the structure, B-rated plants carry the show. Put the A-list where damage would be structural — the hedge, the screen, the evergreen bones, anything at the entrance — and spend the B-list on flowers in places you can afford to lose a season of.
Three swaps worth making today
These are the cases where the standard choice and the resistant choice look nearly identical and score at opposite ends of the scale.
Yew → Japanese plum yew. Taxus is rated D, the worst grade on the list, and it is still the default foundation hedge across half of North America. Cephalotaxus harringtonia, the Japanese plum yew, is rated A. Same dark needled evergreen, same clipping tolerance, better heat tolerance, hardy to about zone 6.
American arborvitae → Russian cypress or Moonglow juniper. Thuja occidentalis is rated D. It is also the single most-planted privacy hedge in deer country, which is why so many of them have a browse line cut cleanly across the bottom six feet. Western arborvitae (Thuja plicata) does better at C. For a genuine evergreen screen in a deer area, use holly (John T. Morris and Lydia Morris are both A), an upright juniper like Moonglow, or bayberry. There is more on building a screen that survives in our guide to privacy plants, hedges and screening.
Rhododendron → Pieris. Rhododendron is rated D, and evergreen azaleas with it. Both pieris on the list — Pieris japonica and Pieris floribunda — are rated A, take the same acid soil and part shade, and flower earlier.
Four A-rated shrubs to think twice about
A high deer rating is one filter. It is not the only one, and four plants on the A-list should not go into a new design without a second look.
- Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii). Prohibited in New York, illegal to sell, propagate or plant in Pennsylvania since October 2021 except for approved sterile cultivars, and banned in Maine. Beyond the invasiveness, Penn State Extension and the National Invasive Species Information Center both report dense barberry thickets harbouring elevated numbers of blacklegged ticks. In a deer garden that is a particularly unhelpful combination.
- Butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii). On the Oregon noxious weed quarantine since 2010 and quarantined in Washington; only approved sterile cultivars producing under 2% viable seed may be sold. Fine east of the Rockies, a legal problem in the Pacific Northwest.
- Russian olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia). Listed as a noxious weed across much of the interior West.
- Leatherleaf mahonia (Mahonia bealei). Invasive through much of the Southeast. Mahonia aquifolium, the Oregon grape holly, is also rated A and is the better-behaved choice.
Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius) belongs on the same list in the West. Check your state’s noxious weed list before ordering any of these; native alternatives usually exist for each.
Placement is half the answer
Every list of deer resistant shrubs stops at the plant. Where you put it matters just as much, and this is the part you control completely.
Deer eat at a height. A white-tailed deer browses comfortably to around six feet. That is why a hedge in deer country develops a flat line across the bottom and a full, untouched top — the plant is not dying, it is being pruned. Anything you need to look good below that line needs to be A-rated. Anything above it is largely safe whatever it is.
They eat from the approach. Deer feed along the edges of open ground and retreat to cover. The beds they hit first are the ones on their route in: the boundary, the driveway edge, the open lawn side. Beds enclosed by the house, a courtyard, a fence run or a dense A-rated hedge get hit last. Two identical hydrangeas, one at the drive and one in an enclosed courtyard, will have entirely different lives.
So screen the vulnerable with the resistant. This is the design move the plant lists never make. A C-rated shrub you love is perfectly plantable if an A-rated hedge stands between it and the deer’s approach. Put boxwood, holly or bayberry on the exposed face and the hydrangeas, azaleas and roses behind it. You are not choosing between a deer-proof garden and a beautiful one — you are choosing an order to plant them in.
Everything new is tested. Deer sample unfamiliar plants regardless of grade, and a newly planted shrub is soft, well-watered and nitrogen-rich. Protect new planting for its first two seasons with netting or a cage even when the tag says A, then take it off. This is also why people conclude a “deer resistant” plant failed, when what actually failed was the first autumn. Autumn is still the right time to put shrubs in — just time it by soil temperature rather than the calendar, and cage them the day they go in.
Plant enough of it. A single specimen is a taste test; a mass of fifteen is a texture deer learn to walk past. Massing also makes the A-list look intentional rather than defensive, which is the difference between a designed border and a collection of survivors. The same principle runs through our guide to shrubs for front yard and backyard landscaping.
Seeing it before you plant it
The hard part of this is not the plant list — it is picturing a bed where the A-rated structure reads as a design rather than a defensive perimeter. That is what Hadaa does: upload a photo of the yard, and it renders the planting as it will actually look, with every plant checked against your USDA hardiness zone before it appears. You can put the boxwood run on the driveway edge, see it, and decide whether it earns its place before anything is bought.
Frequently asked questions
What shrubs will deer absolutely not eat? None. Rutgers states it directly: no plant is deer proof. The closest you get is the 28 shrubs rated A, “Rarely Damaged,” and even those are browsed by a hungry enough herd in a hard enough winter. Treat the A-list as the plants least likely to be eaten, not as plants that cannot be.
Are hydrangeas deer resistant? No. Rutgers rates bigleaf, oakleaf, panicle and smooth hydrangea all C — occasionally severely damaged. Hydrangeas are plantable in a deer garden, but only behind something A-rated or inside a fence, not on the open approach.
Is arborvitae deer resistant? American arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) is rated D, the worst grade, despite being the most-planted privacy hedge in North America. Western arborvitae (Thuja plicata) does better at C. For a screen in a deer area, use holly, an upright juniper, bayberry or Japanese plum yew instead.
Do deer eat boxwood? Rarely. Common boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) is rated A, which is a large part of why it survives as hedging in deer country when yew does not. Boxwood has its own problems — boxwood blight and box tree moth — but deer are not among them.
Does deer resistance change with the season? Yes, and this is the main reason people distrust the lists. Browsing pressure peaks in late winter when natural forage runs out, and again on new spring growth. A shrub ignored from June to November can be hit hard in February. Plan the planting for your worst month, not your average one.
