The rise of urban deer should prompt gardeners to abandon tulips in favour of daffodils, the Royal Horticultural society has said.

The body has said that gardens are less likely to be blighted by roe, muntjac or fallow deer if they opt for the yellow flower, as well as red hot pokers and butterfly bushes, because the animals are put off by the taste.

The RHS surveyed members to see which of the mammals they saw in their gardens and what damage was caused.

Nearly 800 gardeners completed the survey from across the country, with 2,000 records of the effects of hungry deer on 185 popular garden plants.

The survey found roe deer were the most commonly sighted, in 65 per cent of gardens, followed by Reeves' muntjac which were seen in 41 per cent of gardens, while fallow deer were spotted in 9 per cent of the gardens of people responding.

If they could see deer had tucked into a plant, people were asked to record the amount of damage on a sliding scale from untouched to impossible to grow.

Where there were more than 65 entries for a plant, the researchers used the scores submitted to work out a percentage likelihood of it being eaten.