Do Deer Eat Daylilies? How to Protect Them & What to Plant Instead

Do Deer Eat Daylilies?

Yes. Deer eat daylilies, including foliage, flower scapes, buds, and blooms. Rutgers rates daylilies C – Occasionally Severely Damaged and specifically notes that deer may eat the buds, while NC State describes them as frequently damaged by deer. Established clumps usually survive moderate browsing, but flowers already eaten are lost. Protect daylilies as scapes and buds develop, or replace repeatedly browsed plants with lower-browse perennials that perform the same garden role.

1 How Deer Resistant Are Daylilies?

Daylilies should not be treated as reliably deer resistant.

Rutgers rates Hemerocallis as C – Occasionally Severely Damaged and specifically notes that deer may eat the buds. NC State describes daylilies as frequently damaged by deer, and Iowa State includes daylily among plants deer favor.

That does not mean every daylily will be eaten every year. Deer browsing varies with local deer populations, season, weather, available food, and surrounding vegetation.

One garden may experience occasional leaf browsing and still enjoy plenty of flowers. Another may lose nearly every budded scape just before bloom.

The practical conclusion is straightforward: where deer regularly enter the garden, daylilies carry enough browsing risk that valuable flower displays may need protection.

2 What Parts of Daylilies Do Deer Eat?

Deer may browse several parts of a daylily:

• young foliage,
• tender new growth,
• flower scapes,
• developing buds, and
• open flowers.

The greatest ornamental loss usually occurs when deer browse the flower scapes and buds.

Daylily flowers grow on leafless stalks called scapes. Each scape can carry numerous buds that open in succession. Individual flowers last only one day, but a healthy plant can flower for weeks because additional buds continue to open.

If a deer takes one open flower, other buds may still bloom. If it bites off part or all of a budded scape, several future flowers can disappear at once.

3 Will Daylilies Bloom After Deer Eat the Buds?

It depends on how much of the flowering structure remains.

If deer eat a few individual buds, buds remaining on the scape can still open.

If they remove part or all of a scape, several unopened flowers may be lost together.

Some daylily cultivars produce additional scapes or rebloom later in the season, so another flush may still occur. Reblooming does not make a daylily deer resistant, however, and later scapes can be browsed too.

Foliage generally has a better chance of recovery. Established daylilies are vigorous, clump-forming perennials and can replace some leaf growth after moderate browsing.

After deer damage, continue normal care and leave healthy foliage in place to support the roots and crown.

4 How Can You Tell If Deer Ate Your Daylilies?

Deer browsing often looks like healthy plant material has suddenly disappeared.

Look for:

• buds missing overnight,
• scapes abruptly shortened or gone,
• rough or torn ends on damaged stems,
• clusters of buds missing from otherwise healthy plants, and
• sections of foliage or tender growth removed.

Not every damaged daylily bud is caused by deer.

Thrips can feed on developing buds and flowers, causing scarring, discoloration, distortion, or flowers that fail to open properly. Other insects and diseases may also damage foliage or flowers while leaving the affected tissue attached.

5 Are Any Daylilies Deer Resistant?

There is not strong evidence for a dependable deer-resistance ranking among daylily cultivars.

Daylilies differ enormously in flower color, height, bloom season, fragrance, flower size, bud count, dormancy, and reblooming ability, but those characteristics do not establish that one cultivar is reliably less attractive to deer.

A dwarf, fragrant, evergreen, dormant, tetraploid, or reblooming cultivar should therefore not be considered deer resistant simply because of those traits.

Choose daylilies for documented horticultural qualities instead, then assess deer pressure separately.

If you still want daylilies, use Gardenia’s Daylily Comparisons to compare varieties by flowering season, height, spread, hardiness, sun, water needs, and garden role rather than searching for an unsupported “deer-proof daylily.”

6 When and How Should You Protect Daylilies?

If protecting daylilies throughout the growing season is impractical, concentrate your effort when browsing would cost the most flowers.

That period begins when flower scapes rise above the foliage and becomes especially important as the buds enlarge.

A little foliage browsing may leave an established clump looking rough temporarily. A bite through a budded scape can eliminate several future flowers at once.

Physical exclusion is the most dependable protection. Iowa State identifies fencing and other barriers as the most effective way to prevent deer damage. For entire gardens, conventional passive perimeter fencing generally needs to be about 8 feet tall.

For smaller plantings, temporary barriers or individual enclosures may be more practical, particularly from scape emergence through flowering.

Repellents may help under light or moderate pressure, but effectiveness varies. Follow label directions and maintain coverage as new growth develops or weather reduces protection.

Location can also reduce risk. Iowa State recommends growing deer favorites such as daylilies where they are easier to protect or in places deer are less likely to frequent, including areas closer to the home or regular human activity.

Do not rely on deer-resistant companion plants as a barrier. Catmint, salvia, lavender, or other lower-browse plants may themselves be less attractive to deer, but deer can still reach daylily buds growing among them.

7 What to Plant Instead of Daylilies

If deer remove your daylily flowers year after year, replacing at least part of the planting may be more practical than protecting every scape.

The goal is not to find a perennial that looks exactly like a daylily. Instead, ask what role the daylily was meant to play in the border and choose a lower-browse plant that performs that job.

Rutgers rates daylilies C – Occasionally Severely Damaged. Several useful sunny-border alternatives have stronger resistance ratings, including threadleaf Coreopsis and Nepeta in the Rarely Damaged category, and yarrow, purple coneflower, and meadow sage among plants rated Seldom Severely Damaged.

These are lower-browse alternatives, not deer-proof plants. Hungry deer may sample almost any vegetation, and each replacement still needs to suit your garden’s hardiness, light, soil, drainage, moisture, and available space.

They are not interchangeable either. Catmint is much lower and softer in habit than a tall daylily. Yarrow thrives in conditions that may be too dry for some plants. Purple coneflower creates a very different visual effect.

The best substitute is the lower-browse perennial that replaces the garden function of the daylily while also fitting the site.

8 Should You Protect Daylilies or Replace Them?

A daylily that is occasionally sampled may still produce a beautiful display. A bed that loses most of its budded scapes every summer is a different problem.

The decision depends on how often browsing occurs, how much you value the flowers, and whether protecting the plants during their flowering period is realistic.

Daylilies and Deer FAQ

References

• Rutgers Cooperative Extension – Landscape Plants Rated by Deer Resistance
• NC State Extension – Hemerocallis
• Iowa State University Extension – How to Protect Gardens from Deer
• University of Minnesota Extension – Daylilies
• Clemson Cooperative Extension – Daylily Diseases and Insect Pests
• Gardenia – Compare Daylilies
• Gardenia – Daylily Collection
• Gardenia – Plant Finder

Updated: September 2026 – Reviewed by Gardenia Editors