What the deer can't resist
>> Wednesday, July 19, 2017 –
coneflowers,
vines
Looking out of the kitchen window a week or two ago (the days seem to be flying by this year!) I watched a deer browsing near one of my garden beds, eating violets or something else in the lawn.
As I watched the deer nosed into my raised bed, seemingly eyeing my solitary remaining purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea). I waited, knuckles close to the window ready to knock if it looked as if it would bite the last bloom.
I then observed in amazement as it ignored the coneflower bloom which clearly was delicious (its sibling having been taken earlier)...
...and instead stripped leaf after leaf from the milkweed vine (Cynanchum laeve), that weedy thing that I am not diligent enough to eradicate from my garden.
This one isn't the healthiest, not usually looking so pale...
...but it was clearly the first dinner choice of this specific animal. Great!
It even nosed through the deer-proof Agastache foeniculum to follow another vine...
...again removing leaf after leaf.
So anybody who thinks that deer and other herbivores are only here to hurt your garden, hungry only for your most prized plants -- you're mistaken. They're here to help too, weeding when you're not willing (or able)!
The deer did sniff the coneflower bloom and I rapped on the window. That resulted in a broken bird feeder when the big animal bolted, but the flower was saved. Hooray.
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As much as I would love to be able to look out my window and see deer and fawns like you do, they would definitely test my patience if they chowed down on my flowers and plants. I hope your coneflower will escape their notice.
Currently I am being overrun by goldfinches. They are so pretty, but they are plucking all of my zinnias bald. This year they are quiet and don't do the finch call, so my little dog doesn't know they are out there and he doesn't bark and let me know. In past years he would alert me by barking the minute he heard them doing their finch calls in the zinnia bed. I think he liked to see me get up and open to the front door to shoo them away. That was doggy-tainment for him.
Won't it be great when this super hot STL weather finally gives us a little break.
Susie: the finches would always strip my sunflowers long before the seeds were ripe. It's been a long time since I've been able to grow a sunflower, but love finches!
You've trained your wildlife well.