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ONE GARDENER'S VIEW OF CATS, BATS, VOLES AND TOADS
Compared with the population at large, gardeners often have far different attitudes towards cats, bats, voles, toads, chipmunks, rabbits and deer.
Cats are bad. To a cat, a garden is a giant litter box. Some gardeners protect newly planted seedbeds by laying wire mesh flat or domed over the soil until seeds sprout and have filled in the area with at least 25-50% foliage coverage. The mesh should have openings of approximately 1" x 2". Don't leave wire in place too long or you won't be able to remove it without damaging plants. Also, check seedlings often to ensure that they grow through the holes and not into the wire.
Bats are good. A single bat can eat 3,000 to 7,000 insects per night. You can attract bats to your yard by providing bat houses. Bat house building plans are available from the DNR and nature bookstores.
Voles are bad. When the giant snowdrift next to my driveway finally melted in March, I discovered a maze of tunnels in the grass. The voles must have held a major convention there during the winter, leaving behind piles of grass clippings. Typical convention behavior. My advisors tell me most of this grass will recover quite nicely by June, but I planted some grass seed just to be safe.
Voles can be extremely harmful to trees during the winter because they chew bark below the snow line in search of sugars stored under the bark. Any tree that has been partially girdled is more susceptible to infection and will have to struggle to heal the wound. Best defense is cylinders of hardware cloth that extend into the ground and at least one foot above the snow line.
Chipmunks are bad. Yes, I know they're awfully cute. But they drive me nuts because they've set up residency behind, or inside, the boulder retaining wall in my front yard. They constantly push soil and roots out from the inside and just generally make a big mess. If you long for chipmunks, I'll be glad to live-trap and personally deliver them to your yard.
Toads are good. The preferred diet of toads includes many of the worst garden pests, including slugs, potato beetles and cutworms. They come out to eat at dusk or on gray drizzly days.
You can encourage the presence of toads by creating protective shelters for them such as a board on the ground, a flat rock with a bit of space beneath, a two-layer stack of four bricks, or an upside-down clay pot with a hole chipped out. If you want to get fancy, buy one of those toad houses on the market. Toads have been known to frequent the same home for years if they like where they are.
Rabbits are bad. In winter, rabbits eat most anything that's sticking above the snow. You can always determine whether rabbits chewed your shrubs or small trees by the sharp 45-degree angle cut in the stem. In spring, rabbits like tulips and other green shoots that appear before clover and other preferred foods are available.
During the winter, I protect the shrubs that I've learned rabbits savor with wire cages. I've also used commercial repellants, with mixed results.
Deer are bad. They're nearly as indiscriminate as goats. Some folks hang bars of Dial soap, box and all, in trees and claims this keeps deer away.
The only foolproof way to thwart deer, however, is fencing. If you drive by the University of Minnesota Horticultural Research Center on Highway 5, you can view various types of fencing designed to keep deer away from trees and shrubs. The most effective system involves strands of wire strung at a 45-degree angle away from the plants you're trying to protect.
Another way to outsmart deer is to only plant trees, shrubs and flowers that aren't preferred by deer. The University of Rhode Island has developed a list of least-preferred plants of deer. Some of the trees on the list include hawthorn, white spruce, Scotch pine and flowering dogwood.
The least-preferred shrub list includes serviceberry, cotoneaster, forsythia and eastern red cedar. Several of the least-preferred herbaceous plants include yarrow, columbine, astilbe, daisy, delphinium, foxglove, fescue grass, daffodils and Russian sage.
The complete list of least-preferred plants can be found at the University's website: www.uri.edu/research/sustland/
Pink flamingos are good. Just kidding. But if all the other critters mentioned here are more than you can cope with, at least pink flamingos will leave your plants alone. I think every garden deserves to have at least one pink flamingo.
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PUTTING DOWN ROOTS:
A Delightful Blend of
Gardening Wisdom, Wit
and Whimsy
$10 + $2 for shipping
by Cliff Johnson |
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