The Top 15 Smells Attracting Deer to Your Yard

1. Water

Water is a highly prized resource for all animals, so the chances are, if you have water in your yard, it’ll attract a range of creatures, including deer.

Even though deer can extract water from moist food, they drink a lot of water, too, especially if the weather is hot. Ponds also sustain the types of leafy vegetation that deer love to eat.  Experts suggest deer can smell water from over half a mile away.

If you have a river, pond, kiddies paddling pool, bird bath, or a marshy area, deer can sniff it out.

2. Apples

The sweet apple scent is a top smell that attracts deer to your yard. If your apple tree is covered in fruit, that’s a large beacon scent for flocking deer.

Deer can’t resist tangy, sweet apple scents. Eating apples, cooking, or crab apples are all deer magnets, even when they start to rot. Some say deer prefer softer, slightly rotted windfall apples over fresh ones.

3. Pears

Like an apple, a sweet, fragrant pear is a deer’s delight. Expect deer invaders if you have a pear tree, and not just in late summer when the pears ripen. Deer love fruit trees so much that they arrive in spring and eat blossoms.

4. Herbs

Deers have an excellent sense of smell, and highly fragranced herbs are easy to sniff out. A tender herb like basil in your yard will attract deer; however, stronger-smelling pungent herbs, including lavender and oregano, put deer off.

Sweetly-scented herbs also mask human and pet smells that deer actively avoid. Without scary smells in the vicinity, deer are more likely to enter your yard.

5. Berries

Berries such as blackberry, raspberry, or strawberry are a siren call to hungry deer that manage to avoid thorns by delicately picking ripe (or unripe) berries off with their outstretched lips.

Berry scent is strong and many animals enjoy eating them. If you have berries in your yard, expect plenty of animal visitors.

6. Acorns

In the wild, acorns are the jackpot for many animals, including deer, hogs, squirrels, mice, and birds. When acorns fall, deer flock to eat them. Did you know a deer’s sense of smell is so acute it can pick out and leave the moldy acorns?

Acorns grow on oak trees, and deer are also pretty partial to its foliage and bark.

7. Hostas

Great for shady spots and for those of us who prefer foliage over flowers, hostas, also called plantain lilies, are a great deer favorite. Large, moist hosta leaves are perfect for hungry, thirsty deer who can quickly clear their foliage.

Hostas grow in the shade, making them prime targets for deer who feel safe in the shelter of larger plants.

8. Mushrooms

Tasty fungi are high on a deer’s meal wish list. Mushrooms grow on yard lawns where they do no damage and feed on rotting wood or other decaying matter. Fungi enjoy a damp yard lawn with plenty of trees and shrubs nearby.

Deer can smell them and don’t take long to locate their favorite. So many little mushrooms can pop up in your lawn that it’s impossible to get rid of them. Expect deer visitors if your yard is mushroomy.  

9. Petunias

Petunias are pretty bedding plants that brighten up a boring deck, patio, hanging basket, or border edge. Deer like them too, to eat, that is! The scent of sweet petunia is a deer magnet, and they’ll walk past other greenery to get their mouth around a petunia bed, which is also known as a sweet shop for deer.

Petunias attract hummingbirds, bees, and deer, so they’re a great wildlife-friendly plant for the yard.

10. Corn

Most herbivores (plus a lot of omnivores) love corn. It’s a vegetable garden favorite for the kids, who can’t wait for those shiny cobs to swell up and grill on the barbeque. But wait! Deer love the smell and taste of corn, too, and they’ll munch the cobs right off the stalk before they ripen.

Dried corn in bird seed feeders also attracts deer to the yard, it’s one of those staple foods they can’t resist.

11. Dandelions

Dandelion foliage and flowers are a big draw for deer who love their iron-rich milky sap and sweet-tasting yellow flowers. Dandelions emit strong scents when crushed or cut, signalling to deer over half a mile away.

Other weeds popular with deer include clover and sow thistle.

12. Vegetables

Deer love a vegetable garden. Marrow, zucchini, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, they’ll eat the lot, and because a vegetable garden is packed with many amazing veggies, the smell is extra pungent.

Many animals enjoy a vegetable garden dinner. For example, rabbits, groundhogs, foxes, or aphids – a thriving vegetable patch is a tasty temptation to all.

13. Leafy Trees

In the wild, deer eat a lot of tree foliage, but when winter comes and leaves fall, they get hungry and need to sniff out extra nourishment. That’s when your yard becomes a prime target!

If you have willows, oaks, apples, pear, cedar, hawthorn, yew, or dogwood trees, expect a four-legged white-tailed visitor!

Deer also strip bark in their never-ending quest for food. It’s pretty destructive on prized trees. Be sure to surround your expensive, well-loved tree with deer-proofing materials.

14. Pumpkin

Pumpkin-filled yards create a smell so enticing that deer can’t keep away. Deer happily eat every bit of the pumpkin patch, including foliage and flowers. Pumpkin blossom is highly scented, and deer can’t keep away from it.  

15. Doe Urine

Female deer urine is probably the greatest attractive scent for bucks. When a young buck deer leaves the family group to find territory, and a social group, of his own it does not happen by accident!

Bucks sniff the air to locate female deer, and urine is one of the main scents that linger. When a doe is ready to mate, she produces a certain scent that boys can’t ignore. If you already have female deer in the yard, chances are that the bucks are heading your way.