For many of my readers, a woodchuck on the property is not a huge deal. However, earlier this week, I noticed that one of my new, I should mention, containers had most of its petunias chewed off. As it sits on a bench about two feet off the ground, it didn’t seem like a molestation by bunnies or chipmunks. No, no. This is the work of a dreaded woodchuck or gopher. Further garden inspection saw chewed leaves on dead nettles and wholesale destruction of some beautiful yellow coneflowers I’d just put in a few weeks ago. Now I know what it feels like when someone’s home is invaded by burglars or someone breaks into an unlocked car. There is a sense of personal violation. Some will argue that a rodent feeding itself isn’t quite in league in terms of malicious intent, but I have mixed feelings.
What to do? My first instinct was to purchase some coyote urine, which always draws a utterance of distaste from the Princess, but then I thought, what the heck, I’ll order a coyote on Amazon. To my surprise, they don’t stock them, nor many other live predators. It seems the drivers get a bit skittish about delivery. Meanwhile, I’ve deployed the wild turkeys to patrol the north perimeter. They were on duty this morning, as I saw from the bedroom window. Nice job, girls.
The long-range solution is to trap them and banish them from the area. Ideally, they should be exiled to the White Mountains, or better, Quebec. I’m not sure my trapper will go that far, so I’ll settle for a bit of wilderness closer to home. We have a resident, a friend, who tends to go all Rachel McAdams on me when I mention spraying rodent repellent about my gardens. I won’t accept the “a part of nature” line with perennials at twelve bucks a pop. These animals need to develop more sustainable eating habits than gobbling up my flower beds. They may run about and enjoy the flowers, but then they need to go out into the wilderness out back, where they can graze to their heart’s content. The worst part is that this creature doesn’t even like the blossoms of the coneflower. It left them lying on the ground and only ate the stems. That’s just rude!
The Princess, on her daily Starbucks run, saw a furry butt descending into the storm drain by the back door. That must be its escape route and subterranean base of operations. It, and its followers, are down under the back yard, plotting its next raid on my sunflowers. “What do you think, Fred? Can we get around the blue sage without our noses stinging, or should we double back and go under the deck?” I know the way their devious little rodent minds work. I’ve seen the chipmunks digging in my containers when they think I’m not paying attention. But they always leave a telltale sprinkling of soil around the container, like fingerprints on the knife handle.
The Great Critter Confrontation started several years ago, when a neighbor started feeding baby gophers “because they’re so cute.” Cute my Aunt Fannie. They’re a menace to all of nature. OK, not all of nature – apparently the foxes and fishers find them tasty. They’re like spray painters in an underpass. They destroyed zinnias, several large containers, in fact anything with blossoms. One day I had rich, full containers of zinnias, the next day virtual stubble. The neighbor’s cat marked her territory, so they moved over seamlessly to mine. Next came a plump woodchuck (that’s a groundhog, as some call them on their special day), who feasted on my false sunflowers and peonies before moving on to the coreopsis. I’d go out in the morning to find something missing – a garden bald spot that had opened up since yesterday. There they were, gone! Just chewed off little nubbins of once healthy plants. And now the bunnies have arrived. They’re sneaky – they chew some of the leaves off the asters, so all that’s left are stalks. I looked out the kitchen window recently to see a bunny staring at me as it sat munching on ground phlox. Do you believe that? Unabashedly, unrepentantly eating my plants. You could even see where it had pulled up the roots. I, from time to time, have these face-to-face interactions with animals. Don’t know what it is – must be my personal charm and Dr. Doolittle demeanor. Had a brief conversation a few years back with a field mouse that had built a nest in my grill. When I removed the nest, he sat briefly on the side shelf and gave me a look of utter despair, like “what exactly do you think you’re doing? I built that from scratch.”
As I’ve written before, you’d think that something so intimately connected to the natural world would be trouble-free and continual upward movement. Not so, I say. Gardening is like the Hundred Years War – it seesaws back and forth, each of us at some point claiming victory. There are side skirmishes with the chipmunks and squirrels, who continually delight in my spring bulbs. For some reason this year, the squirrels and chipmunks are proliferating like, well, small rodents. One I’ve named for his morning deck excursions, Hector and a couple of buddies (or possibly consorts, next generations?) have been digging tunnels and uprooting bulbs at a prodigious rate. It’s like Stalag 13 down there. I’m convinced he’s networking and dividing the landscape with the squirrels. “You guys eat the tulip bulbs. He just put them in, so they should be fresh. We’ll handle the little ones.” He got his just reward though, when he built his nest in a drain spout and was flooded in the next downpour. In another slight victory, I seem to have defeated the slugs that quite enjoyed the leafy plants – my hosta garden was their continuous buffet. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve seen intricate Swiss cheese holes in the leaves, and similarly, I haven’t seen any beetles on the roses either. Small, tentative victories.
I have enough trouble making sure that my gardens get the right amount of sunlight, that I’ve put in compost and watered them regularly so they have enough to eat and drink, fluffed the soil and mulch so they’re nice and comfy. I take off the spent blossoms and tie them up so they don’t fall over. I’ve lavished care and thought to their every need. Most reward me with attractive displays. Others don’t, as is, I suppose their prerogative. But I can’t nurse back to health anything that’s been chewed off at ground level. I’m not a miracle worker. I know what they’re thinking as they lie in wait in the bushes. All of the wildlife population is letting me know that they’re here, they’re unapologetic, and they expect to be fed. They’re surveying my garden buffet, as that old commercial said, “What’s for dinner?”, making their selections. They’re doing initial taste testing, as a great chef does in a test kitchen, combining flavors, mixing and matching. “I think I’ll have some dahlias tonight with a side salad of coneflower and dead nettle, or perhaps some asters for dessert. What’s the special of the day?.” I oblige them too, on my return from the nursery with my latest investments of the Princess’ inheritance. My small bit of the Hundred Years War goes on.
I'm Thinking...No! 