I have heavy clay. Will these planting dates still work?

The dates will, but the beds might not. Union County clay holds water rather than draining it, and a bed that stays saturated will kill a plant that's perfectly hardy for your zone. Start with the soil and drainage sections before you use the calendar - that order matters more than the dates do.

My bed floods after it rains. What do I do first?

Don't amend it and don't replant it yet. Find out where the water is coming from - roof, downspout, driveway, or your neighbor's grade. Filming the yard on your phone during an actual rain event tells you more in two minutes than a dry-day inspection will. The drainage guide walks through how to read it.

Which North Carolina region am I in?

Roughly: Mountains, Piedmont, Sandhills, or Coastal Plain. They have genuinely different soils, frost dates and drainage behavior, which is why one statewide chart doesn't work. If you're not sure, message me your county and I'll tell you which guide fits.

Are these specific to my property?

No, and that's deliberate. These are educational guides about regional conditions - soil, drainage, frost dates, plant selection. They are not site-specific engineering or design documents for a named address. If your situation needs that, you need a licensed professional on site, and I'll tell you so.

What format are the files?

PDF, delivered as an instant download - nothing is mailed. The guides and garden plans print on US Letter or A4. The fillable binders and logs are US Letter; on A4 paper, choose 'Fit to page' when you print. A few contractor tools are Excel / Google Sheets templates, and their listings say so. Page counts are listed on each product.

Do you offer refunds?

A download can't be sent back, but if a file isn't what you needed, message me within 30 days and I'll refund it - no form, no explanation needed. If something won't open or print properly, message me first and I'll fix it or send a working copy.

How do I fill in the fillable PDFs?

Open the file in the free Adobe Acrobat Reader (computer, phone or tablet), click into any box, type, and save. Some browser and phone previewers show the boxes but don't save what you type - if your entries disappear, switch to Acrobat Reader. Or print it and fill it in by hand.

Can I print more than one copy?

Yes - print as many copies as your own household needs, for as long as you like. The license is for personal use in one household, so please don't resell or share the file.

Report this item to Etsy

Deer-Resistant Sunny Border Plan, 32x15 ft Perennial Design (PDF Download)

Name: Deer-Resistant Sunny Border Plan, 32x15 ft Perennial Design (PDF Download)
Brand: CarolinaTerrain
SKU: 4570365490
Price: 16.87 GBP
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5.0 (2 reviews)

CarolinaTerrain

Item highlights

Digital download
Digital file type(s): 1 PDF

Seller's description

A drawn, to-scale planting plan for a 32 ft x 15 ft sunny border. Six species, fourteen plants - and every single one carries three or more independent sources saying deer leave it alone.

SIX SPECIES. THAT IS THE POINT, NOT A LIMITATION.

NC State's Plant Toolbox tags 1,362 plants as deer resistant. It never defines the term, never states a method, and the filter is binary - a plant is either tagged or it is not, with no way to tell "highly resistant" from "mildly".

So I went through 48 natives and counted how many INDEPENDENT sources agree on each one. Nine cleared three or more. Six of those nine work in a sunny border. Those six are this plan.

A longer list would have been easy to write and worth less.

WHAT YOU GET (6-page PDF, instant download)

- The plan, drawn to scale, on a full page - circles are mature spread, nothing overlaps
- Plant schedule: 14 plants, 6 species, with quantity, mature size, light and spacing
- A USDA hardiness zone range on every plant, looked up individually
- How the six were chosen, and which sources were counted
- The plants I deliberately left out, and why
- Installation sequence and first-two-years care
- Sources, cited

THE PLANTS I LEFT OUT

Butterfly weed, Virginia sweetspire and moss phlox are all sold as deer-resistant and all appear on regional deer lists. The sources contradict each other on all three - the Toolbox calls moss phlox "less palatable to deer" while the Extension handbook names Phlox among frequently browsed natives. None of them are in this plan.

NOTHING HERE IS DEER-PROOF

I will not sell it as such. Under enough pressure - a hard winter, a drought, a herd with nothing else left - a deer will eat almost anything on this page.

New plantings get browsed more than established ones, because young growth is softer. A plant that will be ignored in year three can be stripped in year one. Protect new plants for the first season or two. That matters more than species choice.

If deer pressure is severe, the honest answer is a fence.

WHERE IT APPLIES

Drawn from USDA Zones 7b-8a. Five of the six species run from Zone 3, 4, 5 or 6 up to Zone 9 or 10, so the planting is hardy across most of the eastern United States. Wax myrtle is the exception at 7a - the plan tells you what to substitute if you are colder.

Deer browse pressure is local in a way hardiness is not. The corroboration counts here come from North Carolina sources. Rutgers and Penn State publish defined graded scales for their own regions and both are better structured; if you garden in the mid-Atlantic or Northeast, cross-check these six against those too. I would rather you did that than trust my region blindly.

WHAT THIS IS NOT

Not a design for your property. Not a fence specification. Not a guarantee. I am a licensed North Carolina landscape contractor (CL.1872), not a professional engineer and not a registered landscape architect.

Instant download. Nothing ships.