“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness, it teaches industry and thrift, above all it teaches entire trust.”
Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932), garden designer of some 400 gardens in the UK, Europe and US.
The rains have subsided so the plants require watering every morning, and most evenings, having barely survived the heat of the day. And every morning on my rounds, I examine which plants have been plucked by the innocent-looking deer that bedded down in the field the night before. It would seem with the lushness of the grasses and trees, even wildflowers, deer would have no need of a purple coneflower I’ve been nursing for two years. But there it stands, leaves and stalk, absent the flower having bloomed only days before. There’s no rhyme or reason to the nightly foraging. There’s an abundance of ivy covering trellis and ground, but only the ivy snatched from a planter is gone. And another night, in the old cast iron pot holding red salvia and celosia — gone. Later, the geranium nursed all through the winter in the greenhouse and proudly set on the picnic table — three flowers disappear, and the next night the entire plant, leaving only a small mound of potting soil. A conundrum it is.
I love the flowers and I love the deer, and the deer love the flowers. So, I continue to move planters and flower boxes higher and higher and place flowering plants on porches and inside the perennial garden, and for a short time try something new with the hope there’s no nipping in the night.
Earlier in the spring, about eight young squirrels showed up in full chase around trees and under the bird feeders. The plant-nipping I blame on the deer has sometimes been the squirrels. Squirrels have also been known to tear up the bird feeders. So, I set out a small trap baited with peanut butter. Though I have never caught a squirrel, I did manage to catch four possums and one raccoon in less than a week. The squirrels never came back. The deer did.
The first fox of the season was spotted crossing the road. They are pretty, dainty little things and cause no harm that we know of. Also, the first snake was seen in the perennial garden. It was a 5-foot-long rat snake. I’m not afraid of snakes, but I do like to know where they are. The rat snake is sort of gray with dark markings, and he appears to have “kinks” as he stretches out long, looking something like a stick. I was walking toward the pineapple plant — which happens to have a small pineapple growing, its second offspring — when I spied the snake. Acting unphased, I watered the pineapple and walked to the house for the .22. I hated to shoot the snake, but there’re the cats, and Wilhelmina doesn’t see well, and anything with teeth can bite, so he didn’t need to be in the perennial garden. As often happens, when I returned, he was nowhere to be found. It’s amazing how quickly and completely a rat snake can disappear.
I planted zinnias that have bloomed pink, yellow and orange. I’m hoping against hope the deer show some restraint.
Email reaches Shannon Bardwell of Columbus at [email protected].
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