Is Old Man's Whiskers deer resistant?

April brings the flowers first: dusky reddish-pink bells hanging in threes over rosettes of gray-green ferny foliage.

Tidiness is what spoils it. Deadhead and you throw away the better half of the plant, because what follows the flowers is a mass of long pink feathery styles — the whiskers of the name — and they hold through much of the summer. The foliage is semi-evergreen and turns deep red, so fall is the wrong moment to cut it down as well. Tidy in late winter, if at all.

Six inches to a foot and a half high, spreading into dense mats that work as ground cover along a path edge. It is not fussy about soil: thin ground over limestone suits it, and so do prairie loams, clay and sand, though it does best where the ground holds a little moisture.