GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post - Help solve our garden mystery and win.....

06-07-2005, 09:14 PM

wrote:
....our everlasting thanks.

(Sorry about that but I really wanted to get your attention)

Something is rooting around in our mulch and digging in our beds
and, in the process, uprooting new plantings and those with shallow
roots and we *really* want to stop it.

Here are the clues/observations:

It happens at night. If we leave before it gets light, we return
home and notice plants laying on their sides. Sometimes, the
mulch/dirt is just pulled away from one side of the roots.
Sometimes, as in the case of a couple of nice Selaginella we
planted this season, it's not even noticeable that it's now sitting
*on* the ground rather than with its roots in a hole *in* the
ground until you get down and check.

Whatever is doing this isn't interested in the plants. The roots
and leaves aren't touched. The plants are just the collateral
damage of a hunt for something in the mulch / dirt.

It's not deers. We live in a wooded lot in North Carolina and we
have had more experience with deers than we want to remember.
We've had deers pull a "deer resistant" plant out of its hole only
to remember, "Hey! I don't like this!" and drop it back on the
ground. But there's always a sign they've tasted it. And one of
the beds -- with a lot of hostas in it -- is completely enclosed
with a deer netting that is secured to posts and staked into the
ground. On a couple of occasions when a branch has fallen on the
netting and ripped it from the post and deer have been able to get
a head in, they've munched nearby leaves but not done this kind of
disruption to the mulch.

And the mulch *is* disrupted -- it looks like something is rooting
around in it for something. It's something in the mulch. This has
nothing to do with the plant -- it's happened with hostas, a
rosemary plant, summer snapdragons, etc., etc., etc. Only the
established plants are safe.

Since this looking for something in the mulch is happening at
night, I assume whatever it is has a powerful sense of smell that
it relies on. So, after replanting a couple of plants and cursing
this critter, I thought, "I got something for your powerful sense
of smell!" I bought the cheapest big tin of ground black pepper I
could find and sprinkled a mess of it around the edges of some of
the most frequently uprooted plants -- can black pepper hurt
plants? -- and along the edge of that bed with the netting.

So, any thoughts? More importantly, any suggestions on deterring
it?

Thanks.

Stay up a few hours after dark and keep a flashlight handy and your eyes
peeled.

--

Travis in Shoreline Washington