Updated on September 7, 2026. Ratings below are university browse lists, not a nursery tag. Confirm the current lists on the linked extension pages before you treat a foxglove border as a deer fence.
Rarely. Deer almost never eat common foxglove. Iowa State Extension, compiling Rutgers, Cornell, and Michigan State surveys (last reviewed July 2022), files common foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) with the perennials rarely damaged by deer — the same column as peony, iris, and Lenten rose. University of Georgia Circular 985 puts Digitalis spp. on the herbaceous “rarely browse” table. NC State’s Plant Toolbox is blunter: the plant is “particularly resistant to browsing by deer” because it “contains a chemical that deer avoid.” That chemical is a set of cardiac glycosides, not a catalog slogan. It is the opposite of hostas. It is not deer-proof, and it is not a force field for the hostas next door.
This page is the foxglove answer. Other plants in the same “usually skip” tier are daffodils, peonies, and lavender. For the rest of the yard, start at the deer-proof garden hub and the wild-diet page what do deer eat.
| Plant | Common foxglove (Digitalis purpurea). Biennial in the plantain family (Plantaginaceae). Yellow foxglove (D. grandiflora) and strawberry foxglove (D. × mertonensis) are the usual garden cousins. |
|---|---|
| Verdict | Rarely eaten. Use it for May–June height in part shade. Do not use it as a decoy to save hostas. |
| University rating | Iowa State (Rutgers / Cornell / MSU): common foxglove rarely damaged. Yellow foxglove one column worse — seldom damaged. UGA C985: Digitalis spp. rarely browsed. NC State: deer- and rabbit-resistant. |
| What they eat, when | Almost never the leaves, spikes, or flowers. Occasional nips or trampling on first-year rosettes in spring. Dried plants in hay still carry the toxin. |
| Where it is worst | Not browse. Powdery mildew, crown rot, and self-sowing into the Pacific Northwest and California coast. Pets and children, not deer, are the real hazard. |
| Official sheets | Iowa State — susceptibility of plants to deer damage · UGA Circular 985 · NC State Plant Toolbox — D. purpurea · CSU Guide to Poisonous Plants — foxglove |
What a foxglove actually is
NC State: common foxglove is a biennial that sometimes behaves like an annual and sometimes like a short-lived perennial. Native range is western Europe and Morocco. Year one is a low, hairy rosette — coarse leaves to about a foot, gray-white hairs on top, woolly below. Year two sends a 2- to 5-foot spike, 1 to 2.5 feet wide, packed with 2- to 3-inch tubular bells in purple, pink, cream, or white, spotted inside. Bloom is late spring into early summer. Missouri Botanical Garden lists the same size and a May-to-June window, Zones 4–8; NC State stretches hardiness to 4a–9b.
A six-pack labeled “perennial foxglove” is often still D. purpurea. True perennials in the trade are usually yellow foxglove or the strawberry hybrid Digitalis × mertonensis. Clemson HGIC names ‘Camelot’ and ‘Dalmatian’ as first-year bloomers from seed; NC State names ‘Foxy’ at 2 to 3 feet in flower. No university list I can cite rates Foxy safer from deer than a wild-type purple spike. The defense is the glycoside load in every part — flowers, leaves, roots, stems, and seeds — not the name on the pot. Iowa State’s split is the one gardeners actually buy into: common foxglove sits in rarely damaged; yellow foxglove sits one column worse, with columbine, as seldom damaged. Still two columns safer than hosta.
What they eat, and when
Most years they eat none of it. NC State’s line is chemistry: a cardiac glycoside deer avoid. Missouri Botanical Garden tags the species as deer- and rabbit-tolerant. The remaining window is the one Minnesota Extension flags for the whole landscape: spring, when fat reserves are lowest and a fawn will try a plant once. A first-year rosette is the only foxglove that regularly shows a ragged nip, and even that is uncommon. An established second-year spike is not a dusk snack.
Colorado State’s veterinary poisonous-plants sheet is the honesty check. Animals affected include horses, cattle, and deer. Livestock are infrequently poisoned, but they will eat the plant occasionally either fresh or in hay, and the plant remains toxic when dried. That is not a suburban browse pattern. It is a hay-bale and farm-pen pattern. Dawn and dusk traffic still follows deer feeding times. They walk the foxglove strip to reach the hosta bed. Walking past is not eating.
Deer damage vs rabbits vs mildew
Minnesota Extension’s field test: deer have no upper incisors, so they grasp and rip. A deer nip is a torn stub, often above rabbit height, with split-heart prints. Rabbits leave a clean 45-degree cut within a foot of the ground. NC State and Missouri both rate foxglove rabbit-resistant. A shredded year-one rosette at six inches is more often a boot, a dog, or a vole than a deer. Full rabbit tactics live on how to keep rabbits out of the garden.
What actually kills foxglove in a humid East-Coast bed is not a deer. NC State: fungal diseases plus aphids, Japanese beetles, and mealybugs. Wisconsin Horticulture: powdery mildew on late-summer foliage, occasional aphids, and tall spikes that need staking. A plant that yellows from the crown after a wet winter was drowned. A spike that never appears was a biennial that already flowered and died — that is the life cycle, not browse. Do not spray egg solids on a rot problem.
Region
This is an eastern and midwestern shade-edge plant wearing a West-Coast weed flag. High-density white-tailed deer towns — New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Michigan, northern Virginia — are where you want a rarely-eaten vertical for May, and where a mixed bed of foxglove and hosta still loses the hosta. UGA put the genus on the rarely-browsed list for Georgia; Clemson’s culture note for South Carolina is morning sun and afternoon shade, soil amended with organic matter, never let it dry out. Heat and drought cut flower production. Deer are not the Southern limit.
West of the Rockies the problem flips. CSU: the plant has escaped cultivation and is now widespread in the Northwest on disturbed rich soils along roadsides and fences. Cal-IPC rates D. purpurea Limited on the central and northern California coast and Sierra Nevada foothills. Wisconsin Horticulture flags the same Pacific-Northwest invasiveness. Skip common foxglove there. NC State’s native stand-in is foxglove beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) — same plantain family, not the same toxin, no child URL yet — on the deer-resistant perennials list. One Minnesota trap: Grecian foxglove (Digitalis lanata) is on the Minnesota Department of Agriculture prohibited-eradicate list. That is not the purple biennial at the garden center. Do not order lanata. Wild diet for the animal is still browse, mast, and agriculture on what do deer eat.
The toxicity that makes the rating
ASPCA lists foxglove toxic to dogs, cats, and horses. Toxic principle: cardiac glycosides. Clinical signs: arrhythmias, vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, cardiac failure, death. NC State rates poison severity High and flags children, cats, dogs, and horses. All parts count. CSU: digoxin, digitoxin, and their genins; toxic fresh or dried. That is why deer skip it, and why a cottage border next to a play set is the wrong swap. If the household has a chewing dog or a toddler, plant ferns or zonal geraniums in that bed instead. The glycoside is not a reason to skip an 8-foot fence around the plants deer actually eat.
What works
- Plant the biennial on purpose. Sow or set rosettes this year for spikes next May. Leave some seed if you want a colony; Clemson: foxglove seed needs light to germinate, so do not bury it. Cut all but one or two spikes if you do not want a thicket.
- Match type to the bed. Common foxglove for classic purple height. Yellow foxglove if you want a more perennial clump and will accept Iowa’s seldom-damaged column. Strawberry foxglove for a true perennial in afternoon shade. First-year bloomers (‘Foxy’, Camelot, Dalmatian) if you refuse to wait.
- Use it as the shade-edge vertical, not as a fence. A woodland strip is honest. A ring around unprotected hostas or hydrangeas is theater. Those plants still need cages or Minnesota’s 8-foot woven-wire fence — see how high a deer can jump.
Find foxglove seeds on Amazon Amazon associate tag checkcheck-20. We may earn a commission.
Find 8-foot deer fence on Amazon Amazon associate tag checkcheck-20. We may earn a commission.
Egg-based or hot-pepper repellents belong on the plants deer actually eat, not as a perfume for foxglove they already skip. Rotate formulas and respray after rain. Which bottles last is on organic deer repellent. Whole-yard tactics live on how to keep deer out of garden beds.
Find egg-based deer repellent on Amazon Amazon associate tag checkcheck-20. We may earn a commission.
Find deer netting on Amazon Amazon associate tag checkcheck-20. We may earn a commission.
What does not work
A “poisonous foxglove hedge” around hostas. UGA allows that pungent neighbors can help, and also says there is no deer-resistant plant when food is scarce. Three foxgloves will not hide a hosta mound. Hair in bags, bar soap, dryer sheets, and a 4-foot picket fence fail here the same way they fail everywhere. Feeding the herd trains them to the property — what to feed backyard deer is the page that says don’t. No sourced university list makes ‘Foxy’, Camelot, or Excelsior deer-proof. Do not plant Grecian foxglove in Minnesota. Do not let common foxglove seed into a California or Oregon roadside and call it a pollinator strip.
Three substitutes that already earn their keep
If you wanted May height deer skip, and foxglove is the wrong plant for pets, kids, or a western county:
- Ferns — Iowa State: nearly all garden ferns are rarely damaged. Christmas, ostrich, cinnamon, and Japanese painted fern fill the same shade without cardiac glycosides or a two-year wait.
- Peonies — Iowa State: rarely damaged perennial. Big May bloom deer usually skip for taste and sap. They want more sun than a classic foxglove strip.
- Daffodils — lycorine, Rutgers-class rarely damaged. They cover March and April before the foxglove spike. Not a summer vertical, but they hold the spring slot without a poison label on the play set.
Lavender and salvia cover the sunny, dry edge foxglove will not take. The flower shortlist is what flowers deer do not eat. Foxglove already sits on deer-resistant perennials next to Lenten rose and bleeding heart — those two do not have child URLs yet, so that list is the honest pointer.
Related plants in the same yard
If deer ignored the foxglove and shredded the rest of the strip, believe the ratings. Hostas go first in shade. Tulips go in April. Hydrangeas sit on UGA’s protect-these list. Roses, including Knock Out roses, sit in Iowa State’s frequently damaged woody column. Protect the candy; keep the foxglove. Layout and cost: how to keep deer from eating plants. Pest context: deer as pests.
FAQ
Will deer ever eat foxglove?
Iowa State’s disclaimer sits on every rarely-damaged list: nearly any plant can be browsed when food is scarce. CSU notes livestock — and lists deer — will occasionally eat fresh or dried material. Treat a single chewed rosette as pressure, not as a reason to cage the whole drift.
Are yellow or strawberry foxgloves more deer-proof?
No sourced list says safer. Iowa State rates yellow foxglove one column worse (seldom damaged). Strawberry foxglove is a perennial culture choice. Deer skip the genus for cardiac glycosides, not for flower color.
Will planting foxglove keep deer out of the rest of my garden?
No. It keeps deer off the foxglove. Hostas, tulips, roses, and hydrangeas still need a fence, a cage, or a different plant. That is the point of the deer-proof garden list.
Is foxglove safe around dogs and kids?
No. ASPCA: toxic to dogs, cats, and horses. NC State: high-severity poison, all parts. If that is the household, skip Digitalis and use ferns, peonies, or daffodils in that bed.
Sources
- Iowa State Extension — Susceptibility of plants to deer damage (common foxglove rarely damaged; yellow foxglove seldom damaged; Rutgers / Cornell / MSU; July 2022)
- UGA Extension Circular 985 — Deer-tolerant ornamental plants (foxglove, Digitalis spp., rarely browsed; full review Feb. 1, 2016)
- Rutgers NJAES — Landscape plants rated by deer resistance
- NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox — Digitalis purpurea (deer- and rabbit-resistant; high-severity cardiac glycosides; size, biennial cycle, ‘Foxy’)
- Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder — Digitalis purpurea (deer- and rabbit-tolerant; Zones 4–8; May–June)
- Colorado State University — Guide to Poisonous Plants: Digitalis purpurea (horses, cattle, deer; digoxin/digitoxin; toxic dried)
- ASPCA — Foxglove toxic to dogs, cats, and horses
- Clemson HGIC — Foxglove (biennial vs strawberry perennial; Camelot and Dalmatian first-year bloom; light-requiring seed)
- University of Wisconsin Horticulture — Common foxglove (deer and rabbits skip it; powdery mildew; Pacific Northwest invasive note)
- California Invasive Plant Council — Digitalis purpurea (Limited rating)
- Minnesota Department of Agriculture — Grecian foxglove (D. lanata), prohibited eradicate
- University of Minnesota Extension — White-tailed deer damage (spring pressure; 8-foot fence)
This is a child of the deer-proof garden guide. Wild browse, not a cottage spike, is on what deer eat.
