Is Tulip deer resistant?

Reliably destroyed. If deer are on your property and you plant tulips unprotected, you will lose them, and usually the flower buds go first just as color shows.

The bulbs are eaten too, though that is more often squirrels and voles digging them out shortly after fall planting. Between the two, tulips are the single most heartbreaking bulb in a deer garden: expensive, planted in optimism, gone in one night.

Daffodils are the standard substitute and the comparison is stark. Narcissus contains lycorine and nothing touches it, above or below ground. If you want the tulip look specifically, the only reliable answer is a fenced bed or a container close to the house, not repellent.

Do deer eat tulips?

Yes, and NC State is precise about which part: "Deer will eat the flowers (but not the leaves)." Rutgers rates tulip Frequently Severely Damaged, the bottom tier. The bud goes as the color shows, as the paragraph above says, and what is left is a set of leaves feeding a bulb that will flower again for the deer next spring.

Who else takes them

NC State: "Squirrels may dig up newly planted bulbs," and "mice and voles are attracted to the bulbs and will eat them." So a tulip bed is attacked from below in October and from above in April, and the two need different defenses: wire mesh over the planting for the first, a fence or a cage for the second. The 20 percent egg spray Colorado State rates High buys about thirty days and, on a plant this attractive, is the least reliable option on this site.

Do tulips come back?

Less each year, deer or not. NC State: "in most cases, tulip performance declines substantially starting with the second year," and species tulips "often perform better than hybrid plants as perennials." Plant them three times the depth of the bulb. The comparison above stands: daffodil is the bulb that returns and is never eaten.