Is Aster deer resistant?

Carries a bed from September to frost when little else is left. Pinch the stems back in June and you get a shorter, denser plant that does not need staking.

Do deer eat asters?

Sometimes. Rutgers rates the genus Seldom Severely Damaged, B, and Iowa State lists asters in the same second tier. NC State's entry is plainer about what that tier means: "Deer and rabbits may browse the plants and eat the foliage." The leaf is rough and the stems are hairy, which is the defense, and it is a weaker one than scent; what gets taken is the soft top growth in early summer and the buds as they color in September. The New England aster, the tall native with the clasping hairy leaves, is the one most often walked past.

Where it grows

NC State: zones 4a to 8b, 6 inches to 8 feet depending on the species, full sun to partial shade, flowering summer into fall. The problem list is long and none of it is deer: lace bugs, mites, aphids, Japanese beetles, rusts, powdery and downy mildew, leaf spot, verticillium wilt. Mildewed lower leaves on a tall aster in August are the ordinary condition of the plant in still air, and pinching in June, which shortens it, also opens it up.

Protecting asters

Where buds are being taken in September, one application of the 20 percent egg spray Colorado State rates High covers the month of bloom. Rabbits take the spring growth at ground level, and a plant eaten to a stub in April inside a deer fence is theirs.

If it is browsed

A browsed aster branches below the bite and flowers on the side shoots, later and shorter, which is what the June pinch does on purpose. It regrows from the crown every spring regardless, and a clump divided every few years outlives the animals that browse it.