Is Weigela deer resistant?

Generally passed over, with occasional light browsing on soft new growth in spring. Established shrubs are not troubled.

The mistake that costs a season is pruning at the wrong time. Weigela flowers on old wood, so anything cut in fall or early spring removes the flower buds. Prune immediately after it finishes flowering in early summer, taking a third of the oldest stems out at the base rather than shearing the outside.

Old neglected plants respond well to hard renovation, cut right down over two or three winters, and come back denser than they were. The dark-leaved cultivars need real sun to hold their color and go muddy green in shade.

Do deer eat weigela?

Sometimes. Rutgers rates Weigela florida Seldom Severely Damaged, B, and NC State's entry manages both halves in one page: deer are listed among what it resists, and two lines later, "It may be damaged by deer." That is the second tier from inside. The soft new growth in spring is what goes, and an established shrub is not troubled.

Where it grows

NC State: zones 4a to 8b, 6 to 10 feet, dappled light to full sun, flowering spring into summer, salt tolerant, with "Minimal insect and disease damage" and winter dieback as the only listed trouble. The dark-leaved cultivars want real sun.

Protecting weigela

A young shrub in its first winter or two, all within reach, is worth a wire ring for those seasons; after that, nothing. Where the spring flowers are being taken, one application of the 20 percent egg spray Colorado State rates High at bud stage.

If it is browsed

It flowers on old wood, so a winter browse takes that spring's flowers on the eaten stems and the shrub is otherwise unharmed. It regrows from the base, and a plant renovated hard over two or three winters comes back denser; a browsed weigela is a shrub that had some of that pruning done for it, badly.