Deer Resistant Evergreens

Updated August 2026 · Garden Advice Guide

The genuinely deer resistant evergreens are spruce, fir, Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria), most junipers, boxwood, inkberry and American holly, Japanese plum yew (Cephalotaxus), mahonia, pieris, and leucothoe. Arborvitae is not on that list and never should have been: Thuja occidentalis is one of the top winter foods for whitetail deer across its entire range. If you came here searching for deer resistant thuja or deer proof arborvitae hoping the answer was yes, the honest answer is no, and this page tells you what to plant instead.

Check your zone before you buy a screen. Find your USDA zone with our free growing zone lookup, because a 60-foot hedge is the most expensive planting mistake in a home landscape.

Nothing is deer proof. What follows is a ranking based on how deer behave in a normal winter, plus the specific protection steps that make even the good choices survive their first three years.

The Arborvitae Answer, Stated Plainly

Thuja occidentalis, sold as American arborvitae, 'Emerald Green', 'Techny', 'Nigra', and a dozen other names, is deer food. Not "sometimes browsed." Not "browsed under heavy pressure." It is one of the plants deer actively seek out in winter, and wildlife biologists have documented northern white cedar as a preferred winter browse species in deer yarding areas for decades. Rutgers NJAES rates Thuja occidentalis among the plants frequently and severely damaged by deer, which is the bottom of their four-tier scale.

What that looks like in a yard: you plant a row of 5-foot 'Emerald Green' in April. It's untouched all summer. In February you look out and the bottom 5 feet is bare brown twig, and the green starts abruptly at a horizontal line. Arborvitae does not regrow from old wood. That bare section is permanent. The plant is now a lollipop and the screen is gone.

What about Green Giant?

'Green Giant' (Thuja standishii x plicata) is better, and it is still not deer proof arborvitae. Two things make it more survivable:

1. It's a different parentage with somewhat less palatable foliage than T. occidentalis.
2. It grows fast, often 2 to 3 feet a year, so it can push new growth above the browse line before deer strip it.

In low to moderate deer pressure, 'Green Giant' planted at a decent size and protected for a few winters usually makes it. In high pressure, it gets hit hard, and you will see rows of Green Giants browsed to a clean line in the same neighborhoods where 'Emerald Green' got destroyed. Growth rate is doing most of the work there, not resistance.

So: 'Green Giant' with protection is a legitimate option. 'Green Giant' unprotected in a high-pressure yard is a gamble. Anything labeled Thuja occidentalis in deer country is a mistake.

Why Winter Is the Only Season That Matters

Evergreens get eaten on a completely different schedule from everything else in your yard, and this is the mechanism most articles skip.

From December through March, deciduous plants have no leaves, herbaceous plants are gone, grass is dormant or buried, and acorns are finished. Evergreens are one of the very few sources of green, chewable material left standing. A deer running a winter calorie deficit will eat things it walked past all summer.

That's why an evergreen can look perfectly untouched for four years and then get destroyed in a single February. Summer browsing tells you nothing about whether a plant is safe.

The browse line

Walk the edge of any woodlot in deer country and you'll see it: a clean horizontal line where all foliage below a certain height is gone and everything above it is untouched. That's the browse line, and it sits at the maximum height a deer can comfortably reach, roughly 4 to 6 feet for whitetail deer standing normally, and up to about 7 feet when a deer rears up on its hind legs against a trunk.

Three consequences follow:

• Damage is height-limited, not plant-limited. Deer will strip the bottom 5 feet of a 20-foot tree and leave the rest.
• Small plants are all browse line. A 3-foot shrub is entirely inside the reach zone. The same species at 8 feet has most of its mass out of range.
• Buying bigger buys safety. A 6-foot Norway spruce with its lowest branches at 1 foot is more vulnerable than a 10-foot one. Height above the line is permanent protection.
• Deep snow raises the line. Three feet of packed snow lifts the deer three feet. That's why the worst damage happens in hard winters.

Conifers matter more than broadleaf shrubs here, because most conifers do not regenerate from old bare wood. A browsed hosta comes back in June. A browsed arborvitae is browsed forever.

Genuinely Deer Resistant Evergreens

These are the evergreen plants that hold up. Ratings are based on typical winter browsing, and every one of them can be nibbled in a famine year.

Privet is the broadleaf screening plant missing from that table, because it is planted more than anything else on it across the South, and we treat it separately in is ligustrum deer resistant.

Junipers deserve one caveat. The genus is broadly excellent, but cultivar matters. Stiff, prickly, juvenile-foliage types ('Blue Star', 'Skyrocket', eastern red cedar) are very rarely touched. A few softer-foliaged ground cover junipers get browsed in bad winters. When in doubt, run your hand along the foliage: if it's unpleasant to touch, deer agree.

For the broadleaf and flowering side of the same problem, our guide to deer resistant shrubs covers the deciduous options. Hardiness is the other filter on any conifer list, and evergreen trees by zone gives the mature size and the heat limit for each of the screening options on this page.

The Yew Warning, and the Substitute That Actually Works

Taxus (yew) is the strangest entry in deer-resistant planting, and it trips up more people than arborvitae does.

Yew is toxic. Taxine alkaloids in the foliage and seeds are genuinely dangerous, and yew is a well-documented cause of fatal poisoning in horses, cattle, and other livestock. A few mouthfuls of clippings can kill a horse. Never dump yew trimmings over a pasture fence, and think hard before planting it anywhere near livestock.

And deer eat it anyway. Whitetail deer browse yew heavily, especially in winter, and they suffer no apparent ill effects. Rutgers NJAES puts Taxus in its most-damaged category. Foundation yews in deer country get hollowed out from the bottom every winter.

The substitute is Japanese plum yew, Cephalotaxus harringtonia. This is one of the most useful swaps in the whole deer resistant planting playbook:

If you're in zone 6 or warmer and you want the yew look in a shaded foundation bed, plant Cephalotaxus and stop fighting. The main tradeoffs are cold hardiness (it isn't a zone 4 plant) and price, since it's slower to produce and costs more at the nursery.

Privacy Screens: Real Alternatives to Arborvitae

Almost nobody buys arborvitae because they love arborvitae. They buy it because it's cheap, upright, evergreen, and available in every garden center, and they want to stop seeing the neighbor's driveway. Here's the honest comparison of what actually does that job in deer country.

Ranked for the typical suburban lot with real deer pressure:

1. Cryptomeria 'Yoshino' if you're zone 6 or warmer and have 15 feet of width. Fast, dense, aromatic, and almost never browsed. This is the closest thing to a drop-in arborvitae replacement.
2. Serbian spruce if you're colder or the lot is narrow. It's the one spruce that doesn't need 30 feet of width.
3. Norway spruce if you have space and want it fast and cheap. Bare-root Norway spruce from a state conservation district nursery is the cheapest evergreen you will find anywhere, usually sold in bundles of twenty-five or more.
4. Nellie Stevens holly in the South, or American holly if you can wait.
5. Green Giant if you accept the protection commitment and you're not in a deer-hammered neighborhood.

The best screens in deer country are mixed, not monoculture rows. A single-species hedge fails all at once, from browsing, from bagworms, from a disease, or from one bad winter. Alternating two or three species means partial damage instead of total failure, and it looks better.

Antler Rubbing: Damage That Ignores Palatability

This is the part that surprises people who did everything right. From roughly September through November, bucks rub their antlers against young tree trunks to strip velvet and mark territory. They do not care whether the tree is deer resistant. A Colorado blue spruce that no deer would ever eat can be destroyed in one night by a buck rubbing it.

The damage is bark stripped from a 1- to 4-inch trunk, often in a vertical band a foot or two long, with branches snapped off. Girdle the trunk all the way around and the tree dies.

Trunk protection specifics:

• Target trunks 1 to 4 inches in diameter. Bucks prefer smooth-barked saplings in that range. Anything much bigger or much smaller is usually ignored.
• Use a cylinder, not a wrap. Corrugated plastic tree guards or a sleeve of hardware cloth or welded wire, 4 to 5 feet tall, held an inch or two off the bark. A wrap pressed tight to the trunk can trap moisture and invite disease.
• Stake it. A guard a buck can knock over is decoration. Two stakes per tree, driven 18 inches.
• Install in early September, remove in December. The rut window is roughly September to November, and leaving guards on year-round encourages rodents and rot.
• Protect the whole first 3 to 5 years. Once the trunk exceeds about 5 inches with rough bark, rubbing pressure drops off sharply.

Cheap version that works: a 5-foot section of 4-foot-wide welded wire fencing bent into a cylinder around each trunk, zip-tied closed, held by one rebar stake. It costs very little a tree and is reusable for a decade.

Winter Protection for New Evergreens

A new evergreen has to survive its first two or three winters. After that, most of the foliage on a healthy conifer is above the browse line and the plant defends itself.

Fencing (the only guaranteed method). For a new screen, a temporary run of 6- to 8-foot black poly deer mesh on the deer side, staked to the ground, is far more effective than anything you spray. Leave it up from November through April for the first two or three winters, then take it down. It costs a fraction of replacing the plants.

Burlap. Wrapping or screening evergreens in burlap does two jobs: it blocks winter wind desiccation and it physically separates deer from foliage. Build a burlap screen on stakes around the plant rather than mummifying it, so air moves through. Never use plastic, which cooks the plant on a sunny January day.

Repellent rotation. Repellents genuinely reduce winter browsing, and the routine matters more than the brand:

Expect a meaningful reduction in browsing, not elimination. Repellents plus height plus resistant species is a system. Any one of them alone is a hope.

Buy bigger where it counts. On a screen, the difference between a 4-foot plant and a 7-foot plant is one shopping decision that removes years of vulnerability. It's usually cheaper than protecting and replacing the small ones.

Our main deer resistant plants guide covers fence heights and repellent chemistry in more detail, and for the shady side of the yard see deer resistant shade plants.

Worked Example: Replacing a Failed 60-Foot Arborvitae Screen

The scenario: 20 'Emerald Green' arborvitae planted 3 feet apart along a 60-foot property line. Four winters in, everything below 5 feet is bare brown stick, and the screen no longer screens anything at eye level. Arborvitae doesn't regrow from that wood, so the row is finished.

Step 1: remove. Twenty plants, root balls small enough to pull with a truck strap or dig by hand in an afternoon each. Budget a weekend of your own time, or a half day of crew time if you hire it out. Ask for the removal quoted separately from any replanting, so you can see what each half of the job actually costs.

Step 2: pick the mix. Don't replant a single-species row. For a 60-foot line in zone 6b with real deer pressure:

That's 9 plants across 60 feet, staggered in two loose rows about 4 feet apart rather than one straight line. Size at planting is the single biggest lever on what the row costs: drop each plant one size band and the total falls sharply, at the price of two or three extra years before the screen closes.

Step 3: the spacing math. Nine plants sounds sparse next to the 20 arborvitae you removed, and it is, on day one. But 'Yoshino' matures at 15 to 20 feet wide and Serbian spruce at 15 to 20 feet. Plant them at 3 feet apart like arborvitae and in eight years you have a row of dead lower branches shading each other out. Twelve-foot spacing closes in about 6 to 8 years and stays healthy. Staggering two rows gives you visual density immediately even though the individual plants are far apart.

Step 4: protect. Temporary 7-foot poly deer fence along the deer-facing side, 60 feet of it plus stakes. Trunk guards on all 9 for the fall rut. Repellent through three winters. All three together are a small fraction of what the plants cost, which is the point: protection is the cheapest line in the project and the one that decides whether the expensive line survives.

The honest comparison. The mixed screen costs meaningfully more up front than replanting 20 small arborvitae, because you are buying nine large plants instead of twenty small ones. But the arborvitae row will be browsed to a bare line again by year four and you will be standing here a second time. The mixed screen is a one-time cost. The arborvitae is a subscription.

Faster and cheaper version: 9 Green Giant at 10-foot spacing in the 5-6 ft size runs well under half the mixed screen, and you accept fencing them for three full winters as non-negotiable. That's the budget path, and it only works if you actually put the fence up.

Two Sources Worth Bookmarking

The Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES) maintains Landscape Plants Rated by Deer Resistance, rating hundreds of species on a four-tier scale from rarely damaged to frequently severely damaged. It's the reference to check before committing to any large planting, and it's the source that puts both Thuja occidentalis and Taxus firmly in the bottom tier where they belong.

Penn State Extension publishes detailed guidance on deer damage management, including fencing specifications, repellent use, and tree protection during the rut, written for the Northeast conditions where evergreen browsing is worst.

FAQ

Is arborvitae deer resistant at all?

No. Thuja occidentalis (American arborvitae, including 'Emerald Green' and 'Techny') is one of the most heavily browsed landscape evergreens in North America and a preferred winter food for whitetail deer. It gets stripped to a clean browse line around 5 feet and does not regrow from that bare wood. If you already have it, winter fencing or burlap screening is the only practical rescue.

Is Green Giant arborvitae deer proof?

No, but it's noticeably better than Thuja occidentalis. 'Green Giant' is a different hybrid with less palatable foliage and it grows 2 to 3 feet a year, so it can outrun the browse line. In low to moderate pressure it usually establishes fine. In high pressure it gets browsed hard, and you should plan on deer fencing or aggressive repellent for the first two or three winters.

What is the most deer resistant evergreen tree?

Spruce and fir are the most consistently avoided evergreen trees, with Colorado blue spruce, Norway spruce, Serbian spruce, and concolor fir all rated very highly, which is close to the same short list that separates the firs from the spruces indoors. For a screen where you want fast, dense, arborvitae-like growth, Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica 'Yoshino') is the best combination of speed, density, and deer resistance in zones 6 and warmer.

Do deer eat yew?

Yes, heavily, which surprises people because yew is toxic enough to kill horses and cattle. Whitetail deer browse Taxus through the winter with no apparent harm, and foundation yews in deer country get hollowed out from the ground up every year. Plant Japanese plum yew (Cephalotaxus harringtonia) instead in zone 6 and warmer. It looks nearly identical and deer leave it alone.

What evergreen shrubs are deer resistant?

Boxwood, inkberry holly, Japanese plum yew, mahonia, pieris (andromeda), leucothoe, and most junipers. Each one combines a physical defense (tough, waxy, or spiny leaves) with a chemical one (alkaloids or bitter compounds). Boxwood and inkberry are the workhorses for structure and low hedging; pieris and leucothoe handle shade; mahonia adds winter flowers and spines.

Why do deer eat evergreens in winter but not summer?

Because in December through March, evergreens are among the only green, chewable food left standing. Deciduous leaves are gone, herbaceous plants have died back, and the acorn crop is finished. A deer running a winter calorie deficit will eat things it ignored all summer, which is why an evergreen can look untouched for years and then get stripped in one February.

What is a deer browse line?

It's the clean horizontal line where deer have eaten every leaf and needle they can reach and everything above is untouched. It sits around 4 to 6 feet up, and closer to 7 feet where deer rear onto their hind legs. Deep snow raises it, because the deer stands higher. Since most conifers never regrow from bare old wood, a browse line on an evergreen is permanent damage.

How do I stop bucks from rubbing my new trees?

Guard every trunk between 1 and 4 inches in diameter from early September through December. Use a 4- to 5-foot cylinder of corrugated tree guard or welded wire held slightly off the bark, staked with two stakes so a buck can't push it over. Antler rubbing has nothing to do with whether the species is palatable, so protect resistant evergreens exactly the same as any other young tree.

Updated August 2026

A note on numbers. This page gives you spacings, mature sizes, fence heights and plant counts, not dollar figures. Nursery stock, fencing and repellent are priced by your region, your supplier and the size you buy, and we do not set any of it. Work out the plant list here, then price it at two or three local nurseries.