Is Balloon Flower deer resistant?

The buds inflate like small balloons before splitting open, which children find fascinating. It emerges very late in spring, so mark the position or you will dig into the crown. Long-lived and resents division, so plant it where it can stay.

Are balloon flowers deer resistant?

Not reliably. Rutgers rates Platycodon grandiflorus Occasionally Severely Damaged, the third tier, which is the tier the buds are in: the inflated buds that give the plant its name are soft, sweet and at the top of the stem, and they are what goes. NC State tags the plant deer resistant without a sentence to say why, and on a plant Rutgers observed damaged occasionally, the tag is the more optimistic of the two sources. The foliage is left alone in most gardens.

Where it grows

NC State: zones 3a to 8b, 1 to 2 feet, full sun or partial shade, flowering spring into summer. It is late up in spring, long-lived and resents being moved once the taproot is down, all of which argue for planting it once, in the right place, and marking it.

Protecting balloon flowers

Where the buds are being taken, one application of the 20 percent egg spray Colorado State rates High as the buds inflate, and again at about thirty days for the later ones. A plant this size is also easily caged.

If it is browsed

Buds taken are gone; the stem branches below the bite and sets smaller buds later in the summer. The taproot is not in danger, and the plant comes back the following spring, late, as it always does.