Pests

Wildlife

Living in the country I also have to contend with the appetite of the whitetail deer, ground hogs and skunks. To thwart deer from eating my flowers, I attempt to plant deer resistant plants. For instance I plant daffodils rather than tulips. Deer love tulips. I once received 5 free bulbs with my daffodil order and stuck them in the middle of the daffodil bed. While flowering, the tops of the 5 five tulips were chomped while the daffodils remained untouched. Of course the daffodils were yellow and the tulips bright red but whether that made them a more tempting target is not something with which I intend to experiment. Besides which tulips are not known for there longevity whereas daffodils multiply. My vegetable garden is surrounded by a 4 foot tall plastic mesh fence. This will not stop a determined deer and last year it did not stop the skunk or groundhog from munching tomatoes. However, last year the garden was neglected due to a number of reasons and the wildlife probably felt more at home than this year.

Insects

Insects have not been as big a problem in my flower beds as they have been in my vegetables. However, there seemed to be an over abundance of Japanese beetles in 1997. That year they were so bad the trees in the woods and especially the wild rose bushes were devastated. I had to put out numerous beetle traps and was changing bags almost daily all summer. In 1998 they were not as bad, though I have no idea why. And thus far, at the end of July 1999, they have been nearly non-existant. There have however been potato beetle larvae and the occasional hornworm. And I suspect a squash borer in my pumpkin vine since the leaves are wilting and dying, though I can't seem to find it.

 

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