Is Garden Petunia deer resistant?

The trailing and spreading types need far more feeding than most bedding plants and go pale and starved without it. Older large-flowered grandifloras turn to mush in heavy rain; the smaller multiflora and milliflora types shrug it off. Sticky foliage is what deters deer.

Do deer eat petunias?

Sometimes, and the two sources this site relies on disagree about how often. NC State's entry for Petunia x hybrida says "this plant is seldom damaged by deer" and lists deer among the challenges it resists. Rutgers, whose observers rated plants in northern New Jersey landscapes, puts petunia in Occasionally Severely Damaged. The sticky foliage above is the mechanism both are describing; the difference is pressure, and a petunia in a hanging basket by the door is the one that agrees with NC State.

Protecting petunias

Baskets and window boxes are the protection, and the plant is built for them. For a bed, the 20 percent egg spray Colorado State rates High, reapplied at about thirty days, from planting out until frost. The spreading types that need heavy feeding also need the spray more, because the softer the growth the more it is worth eating.

Do petunias grow back after browsing?

Usually. A petunia browsed to the stems rebranches, and NC State's advice for a leggy plant is the same as for a browsed one: pinch it back and deadhead, because "deadheading provides optimal performance and increased flower bud production." The plant that does not come back is a grandiflora flattened by rain and then eaten; the multiflora types above recover from both.