Low-Maintenance Deer-Resistant Shrubs for Shade

Low-upkeep shrubs for shade that tend to escape deer damage. Compare mature size, growth rate, and hardiness zone.

Hybrid Witch Hazel

Bunchberry

Bride’s-Feathers

Common Pawpaw

A shrub holds the middle ground between a border plant and a tree, and it is the layer deer reach first. These shrubs are also the low-upkeep ones. Dry shade is the hardest place in the garden to plant, and some of these manage it. Most earn their place on the flowers.

shrubs: 61
hardiness zones: 3 to 11

Canadian Serviceberry

Common Honeysuckle

Bubby Bush

Partridgeberry

Nothing about deer-resistant shrubs is plain. You will find shrubs flowering in spring through to summer, with colour running on when the rest of the garden has finished. Most of the colour is white and yellow.

spring: 47
summer: 21

The breadth is the point: the range is wide enough that no two borders need look alike. Viburnum has the most entries, and borders and woodland edges are the commonest uses.

borders: 38
woodland edges: 33