A Weekend Away

The first thing I did when I arrived home from a weekend out of town was take a walk through the garden and see what changed. Here's what I discovered.

If there was an order to which hosta the deer ate next, I missed my chance to see it. They're all gone! Keep in mind this is the same hosta I showed in my Some Firsts post on the 16th! This is only six days later.

A couple of sunflowers from the cutting garden were sampled as well

The oregano bloomed

and the squash are attempting to escape from the floating row cover! I know I'm supposed to leave it on until I see flowers, but there's at least one bent stem under there. I guess I need to spend some time pulling it in some so that they have more room to grown up instead of out.

Some Firsts

Neither of this weekends firsts are positive I'm afraid. First, there was Sunday's discovery of Japanese beetles on the lavender, on the bean plants, on the hydrangea and mating on my camera bag. I have never been one to kill insects. There's even a spider that lives in a basket on my kitchen counter, but Japanese beetles bring out the worst in me. I crushed as many of them as I could, but some escaped.

The 2nd first is deer related; the first time we've had any deer damage in our yard. We had a doe May 30th, we had footprints in one of my herb beds June 12th, but it wasn't until June 14th that they began to dine. Not in the kitchen garden thank goodness! The victims: the green hosta, and the flowers on all of them. It's interesting because there was A Gardener's Diary where a woman said the deer ate her hosta in the following order: the green, the variegated, then the blue. Our deer had all three to choose from in various places of the yard and only devoured the green ones. It will be interesting to see which color goes next.

The last first was the most delicious for us, not the deer! Blackberries!

Is my Garden Half Empty or Half Full?

Lately, between the deer and the drought, I've defintely been feeling all of my beds are half empty. My neighbors warned me that the deer would be devestating and discouraged me even trying. Never one to let someone else tell me I can't or shouldn't do something just because it didn't work for them, I persisted. As I watched my tomatoes and peppers be eaten again and again, I told myself that at least the herbs were all right and came up with strategies to try for next year. Nonetheless, somewhere along the line (I think when the cranesbill I planted in the spring was pulled up and devoured) I started to forget all of my positive thinking.--half empty they were!

Then, one of my neighbors came over. I was ready for her subtly crafted, "I told you so" having rehearsed my response and practiced it on my husband, but do you know what she said? "I can't believe the deer haven't eaten more of your garden, it looks great." I wasn't ready for that, I had nothing to say, but I looked around and I saw that she was right; parts of the garden were thriving. My rosemary is growing, my lemongrass is shooting skyward, my sage has never looked so good and my scented geraniums are sprawling! I can breathe a sigh of relief--half full after all!

Hypothesis: I Need a New Camera

I was sitting on my stoop when out of the woods across the street came a young fox, slightly larger than a cat. I watched him for a while and then noticed a doe coming out of the forest. She and the fox ignored each other and actually stood quite close. Then the buck arrived and while he seemed okay with the fox at first, he apparently changed his mind and began crowding the fox until it got the hint and headed over to our yard. It was amazing and I couldn't get any of it on film!

I knew this because the doe and the buck have been hanging out across the stree every evening for several weeks now. Occassionally, a fawn emerges from the grass as well, but usually it's just the two of them. Our dog, Archie, fierce hunter that he is, looks for them every night and just lies there gazing at them. They will occassionally, look up at him, or me if I'm out there, and then go back to grazing. They never seem bothered by Archie, but if I get too close they will stamp their feet until they've decided they can't let me get any closer and one of them, usually the buck, will give a whooping cough-like bark and away they go. So a few nights ago, thinking of the blog, I tried to take a picture of the deer and Archie watching them. This is the best of them.




and now you see the conclusion is clear: I need a new camera!

What Deer Eat

I was away over the weekend and the deer came over to play! Even on the patio!
They ate:
Asiatic lilies

Daylilies

Dill
Echinacea
Hosta

Parsley
Peppers
Scarlet Runner Beans
Sedum
Tomatoes

They didn't eat (so far):
All of my other herbs
Chrysanthemums
Coreopsis
Geranium
Hydrangea
Liatris

Lilac
Malva
Roses

Spirea
Verbena

Guest Overstays Her Welcome!

Twice this week we had a doe in your yard. The first time we saw her, I was sitting on the screen porch and heard rustling in the yard. Craning my neck, I could see her poking into the leaves at the base of our peach tree. She was beautiful! A couple of days ago, my son called me into the office around 8 am and there she was licking our bird feeder. Yesterday, I went outside and was surprised by what I thought was a new plant that had suddenly appeared in the bed beneath the patio. Slowly I recognized it as the hosta pictured above. Here's what it looks like now.

My next thought was my vegetable garden. As yet untouched by deer. No more. They're amazing creatures; she bypassed yellow pepper plants on either side and red pepepper plants in another bed to eat the tops off of two of another kind of red pepper plants. If you're wondering how I'm so sure it was her, well I have evidence.