Those darn animals!

One of the disadvantages of having a garden full of wildlife is the "wild" part. They just don't seem to understand the limits that I have set for them.

Take for instance the raccoons, who have revealed to me the one drawback of using Milorganite to fertilize -- but I'll get to that in a minute.

***

First we'll talk about the deer...

...who are really quite comfortable now walking around "their" neighborhood. Front yard, middle of the day -- why not?

At least this one was just eating violets from the lawn (another reason for me not to try and eradicate them). I think there are only four things in the front garden that they eat (besides weeds): The rose next to the driveway, the oakleaf hydrangea, the euonymous (don't care), and the Rudbeckia triloba volunteers.

Did you say there's a rose around here somewhere?

When she saw me in the window she took off...

...back across the street, making both of us are more comfortable.


Somebody didn't get the memo that squirrels don't like safflower seeds...

...and the feeder is getting emptied each day now. Maybe I should put some sunflower seeds out too, somewhere else in the yard -- that will work to keep him off the safflower feeder, right?

Yeah, sure it will.


The goldfinches can't seem to wait until seeds ripen...

...but I like seeing them landing on the Agastache foeniculum. They supply a punch of color on a plant that is starting to fade a bit.

(They do the same thing with sunflowers, eating the seeds well before they're ripe.)


The almost-invisible goldfish in the water barrel are so well-behaved...

...they don't even eat the duckweed. Strange though that the water hyacinths are allowed to grow here with only a nibble or two (as you can see if you look closely) but in the pond the deer gobble it up. This seems to be much more convenient.


Okay, finally back to the raccoons and Milorganite. I add it to the potting mix that I make, and if I use too much the raccoons go crazy, convinced that something delicious is hiding in each of the pots.

What this means is that I often have to clean up the morning after doing some potting.

Then I repot everything.

Then I clean up again the next morning.

My fault this time because I forgot that if I dump a small pile of Milorganite on the driveway they'll find that and won't dig around the pots as much. It seems to work, but I can't say that it's foolproof.

I don't think they killed any of these plants, but it certainly wasn't pretty.

They cleaned their hands off in a little container of rainwater. Little muddy footprints are kinda nice, but I'd rather not see them.

Not sure why they dug around the plumeria...

...but I would have been really angry (Hulk angry) if they had damaged this plant.



Remind me, why am I a fan of wildlife in my garden again?

Oh yeah.

.