In article , wrote:

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:36:46 -0500, "Catty One"
wrote:

First off, let me say, I'm a gardener ... I totally and completely
understand about 'nuisance animals' and understand the fact that critters
sometimes need to be dispatched for various reasons. On the other hand, I
totally feel that we, as humans, bring a lot (if not all) of crap upon
ourselves. I've had issues w/woodchucks in the past and I've relocated
several (I can't bring myself to kill them, I know you're not supposed to
move them either, but oh well).

I've left my woodchuck alone. Last summer Mrs Woodchuck moved in.
Now I'm anticipating a population explosion to match my rabbit
population. Its like the Wild Kingdom around here sometimes. Wait
till I put in my pond.

Rabbit warrens or groundsquirrel towns increase in population, but
woodchucks tend to be loners, making them easier to share a garden with or
even a harvest. A growing family of rabbits would be a much larger test of
tolerance & willingness to share.

Good luck with the intended pond. There's an eco-friendly pond movement
with increasing numbers of people doing whatever they can to ENCOURAGE
visits from herons & racoons instead of striving to keep all of nature
away. I'm always of two minds about it myself. Ideally wildlife is
welcome. When one has a small garden, though, a twilight visit from only
one or two deer is sufficient to spell the doom of everything.

I now have a contract to do ongoing landscaping projects throughout Shin
Lur Gardens, which is a huge private garden reliably visited by deer &
elk. It's the first time I've had to make plant choices & do landscaping
always baring in mind what deer could automatically ruin. To see a band of
elk in the garden is amazingly cool, even to just find all the elk-tracks
through an area that was raked smooth the day before is kind of thrilling.
There's a big lawn area & turf seems to be their favorite stuff, so some
prize shrubs don't get hurt as they concentrate on grass. But a row of
roses had been chomped down to nubs before I started working in those
gardens, so it seemed pretty obvious I shouldn't plant roses unless I
wanted to feed the wildlife. The decision has been made that visiting deer
& elk remain welcome as part of Shin Lur's charm. Plants that can't thrive
in their presence will be grown (if at all) in the only enclosed area.

The next few seasonal cycles will be a learning experience for me. So far
the deer have never really much bothered rhodies, but go for berrying
shrubs & roses, & of course the lawns which they're welcome to crop to
heart's delight (or hart's delight). Even some of the berrying shrubs they
ignore -- there are a whole lot of native huckleberries & for a while I
was taking a weekly bucket of fresh-picked from the shrubs, & there was
never a day when birds or deer had cleaned them out, always plenty of
berries for me. But that same wild area is devoid of mature swordferns,
which the deer apparently prefer over the huckleberries, so it might turn
out to be hard to keep ferns in the gardens too (the previous gardener
certainly didn't plant ferns & it LOOKS like the reason is because that
gardener liked heavy mulch between trees & shrubs rather than an array of
perennials; but I may discover there was no choice).

I worry a bit that if these animals can no longer gobble down roses they
WILL start damaging the rhodies & other things they presently pass over. A
small building for offices is going up on the property this coming summer,
amidst cedars so the new building will have to be surrounded by shade
gardens mainly. I'm planning to make the gardens there dominated by autumn
& winter flowering sasanqua camelleas, which I'm counting on deer not
liking TOO much. But I autumn-planted a number of blueberry shrubs & I'm
fretful the deer aren't going to permit that area to work out well, &
it'll be embarrassing if one of my first new-area projects on the grounds
turns out a complete dud.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com


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