Is Phlox deer resistant?

Powdery mildew is close to inevitable on bed phlox unless you thin the stems to five or six per clump for airflow, water at the base, and choose a resistant cultivar. Do all three and it is one of the best scented summer perennials. Deer browse it readily.

Do deer eat phlox?

Yes, readily, as the paragraph above says. Rutgers rates phlox Occasionally Severely Damaged. NC State's entry for garden phlox, Phlox paniculata, does not mention deer; it lists the cottontail rabbit among the plant's problems, so a bed of phlox in July is being eaten from two heights. Deer take the flower heads and the soft top growth; rabbits take the base.

Protecting phlox

The 20 percent egg spray Colorado State rates High, from the time the stems reach a foot until the flowers finish, renewed at about thirty days; through a July-to-August bloom that is three applications. A wire ring 2 feet high stops the rabbits and, on a plant NC State puts at 2 to 4 feet, does nothing for the deer. For a bed that matters, the fence.

Does phlox come back after browsing?

The clump does; the season's scent may not. Stems browsed before bud rebranch and flower late and small; stems browsed in flower are done. The thinning above is the same operation NC State recommends for mildew, "adequate spacing and thinning of stems as needed," and a thinned clump is a browsed clump with fewer stems to lose.