Is Rosemary deer resistant?

Intensely aromatic, and one of the plants deer reliably refuse. Also genuinely useful in the kitchen, which is not true of most of this list.

Hardiness is the constraint. It is reliable to about zone 8, sometimes zone 7 with sharp drainage and a sheltered wall, and dies outright further north. Cold alone is not what kills it; cold plus wet is. A rosemary in heavy soil will rot over winter in a zone where the same plant survives easily in gravel.

North of that, grow it in a pot and bring it in. The usual indoor failure is the opposite of the outdoor one: overwatering. Let the pot dry out between waterings, give it the brightest window you have, and expect it to sulk until spring.

Do deer eat rosemary?

Rarely, and it is one of the plants the whole idea of deer resistance was built on. Rutgers rates it A, listing it among the annuals because in New Jersey it is one; Iowa State puts it in the top tier; NC State: "Highly salt and drought tolerant; resistant to damage by deer." The resin in the needle-like leaf is the reason, and it does not fade with the season the way a soft leaf's scent does.

Where it grows

NC State: zones 8a to 10b, full sun, 4 to 5 feet where it is hardy, flowering spring and summer, and resisting drought, heat, humidity, salt, poor soil and slugs. Every failure on its problem list is water: root rot, botrytis, "Overwatering causes plant decline or death," and "Difficult to overwinter indoors," which is the indoor problem in one line.

Protecting rosemary

Nothing from deer at any age. From winter, drainage first and shelter second, and a pot north of zone 8.

If it is browsed

A rosemary that has actually been browsed, which is unusual enough to be worth checking for the ragged tear that means deer rather than the clean cut that means rabbit, regrows from the stem behind the bite. Pruning into bare old wood is the standard warning for it, and the same warning applies to a shrub that has died back in a cold winter: what is bare stays bare, and the plant is replaced from a cutting.