Are Violas Deer Resistant?

Keeping deer from browsing your garden plants can pose a challenge. While hungry, nursing or young deer will eat almost any plant, deer find some plants -- such as the viola -- more palatable than others.

Deer prefer to eat irrigated and fertilized plants. Moist, nutrition-rich garden and landscape plants provide protein, carbohydrates, salts, minerals and up to one-third of deer's daily water needs, according to the University of Georgia. Tender, moist plants such as violas, also known as pansies, frequently sustain deer damage.

Violas are compact, flowering plants that can be grown as perennials, annuals or biennials. Blossoms come in a variety of colors, including white, yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue and multicolored.

Violas thrive in cool temperatures. Plant them in shady spots in moist soil enriched with organic matter, such as sphagnum peat moss or compost. Violas can be grown from seed in the spring or fall or from rooted cuttings in the fall.