Flower garden question?

[pintail_drake2004]

Not really sure where to put this. My wife and I are planning on redoing our flower garden and expanding this year. We learned the hard way that the chickens liked a lot of our plants the last few years. For the most part, they leave our lavender, roses, and lilacs alone. We are wanting to continue on building our flower garden to where we have continuous blooms early spring to late November. As we are laying out our design, I'm shooting for a staggered height (front to back) with lots of blooms. I'm hoping I'm picking flowers the chickens wont destroy. Do any of yall have any input on if the chickens (flock of 50 that we free range) will eat:

Flower Season Height
Tulips mid/late spring 18-20"
Iris spring/summer 20-24"
Peony spring 18-36"
Hyacinth spring 8-12"
Gladiolus early summer 20-30"
Zennia full season 12-20"
Mums summer/fall 12-18"
lavender summer/fall 12-14"
Marigold summer/fall 10-12" (I know they will eat this)

We are looking to fill in approximately 60 linear feet, 4 feet deep in front of our house.

 

[room onthebroom]

That sounds beautiful!

I don’t know of anything I’ve ever planted that the chickens haven’t eaten. Have you considered fencing it off with some light bird netting?

I suggest using the search feature (*see pic bellow) to find like minded gardening peeps. Just type garden into the search box & a lot of options should pop up.

Happy thread hunting & good luck with the new garden!

 

[Artichoke Lover]

They will probably leave the Iris and gladiolus alone. The leaves are really too tough to make a meal out of.
I’ve also heard they aren’t very fond of some the more strongly scented marigolds

 

[pintail_drake2004]

I'd rather not fence in the whole front of my house just for flowers. I know the chicken were not affected by the thorns on my rose bushes, as I had originally considered a "fence" of short roses in front of the rest of the flowers for protection.

 

[room onthebroom]

My chickens love to eat Rose petals. They get impatient for them to fall & start jumping for them.

 

[room onthebroom]

...They also hide in the rose bushes & cactus on windy days or if there’s a hawk nearby.

 

[Rodrad]

My question is weather the chickens would eat leaves and stems of a peonies and of the daffodils. Our run is a large 50’ square and inside there are bunch of daffodils and three peonie.

 

[Artichoke Lover]

How many chickens do you have in the run? Personally I would move the daffodils. They are easy to move and they are poisonous if they do eat them.

 

[Rodrad]

How many chickens do you have in the run? Personally I would move the daffodils. They are easy to move and they are poisonous if they do eat them.

I have 10 chickens and the run is 50’ square. We typically thin our daffodil bushes and use the bulbs for new plantings. We have been doing that for 30 years.
I understand that chickens in a large free run environment most likley would not eat them.

I assume most likely we will dig them all completely out.

thank you