Is Columbine (Aquilegia) deer resistant?

Spurred flowers over blue-green foliage, and it hybridises freely so seedlings rarely match the parent. Leaf miner disfigures the foliage by July; cut it to the ground and it reflushes.

Do deer eat columbine?

Seldom. Rutgers rates Aquilegia Seldom Severely Damaged, "Columbine, Aquilegia sp.," and NC State lists both deer and rabbits among what the genus resists. Under pressure the flowers on their spurred stems in May are the part taken; the foliage, thin and blue-green, seldom is.

Where it grows

NC State: zones 3a to 8b, full sun to partial shade, 1 to 3 feet, flowering "mid-spring into summer," and under Problems, one word: "Short-lived." A columbine is a plant of three or four seasons that seeds itself into more, and the seedlings of a hybrid do not come true to the parent.

Protecting columbine

Rarely needed. Where flowers are going, the 20 percent egg spray Colorado State rates High, once, at bud stage, covers the four weeks of bloom. The rest of the season the plant looks after itself.

If it is browsed

Cut to the ground, by a deer or by a gardener dealing with leaf miner, it reflushes from the crown in a few weeks and the plant is not harmed. Flowers taken are gone for the year; the plant sets seed on whatever it kept.