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| Raccoons are very nimble at digging. They just dug around the flats. This is probably why the botanic garden used a couple of layers of them. |
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| I have a few wire cloches too. While they're useful in protecting taller plants, they're also more expensive and more cumbersome to store. |
Oh well. I won't be turning down any flats offered by local garden center to transport new purchases anymore. I guess my plan to clean up the storage area behind the garage will also have to be revisited.
In the short term, heavy rain and saturated soil may keep the raccoons at bay for one or two nights. Another "atmospheric river" blew in last night. We saw flashes of lightning in the distance. Apparently Santa Barbara and Los Angeles recorded almost 1500 lightning strikes within five minutes. A plane exiting LAX was struck by lightning and forced to turn back. While evacuations have been ordered again in Santa Barbara County due to a fear of mudslides, there are no serious issues in our immediate area that I can see.
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| Not that I can see much. We're socked in again. The Port of Los Angeles below us is invisible this morning. |
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| Our neighbors are largely invisible too. (Please excuse the rain spots in this photo.) |
On a pleasant note, the Xylosma congestum shrubs we planted to extend our hedge along the street are coming along nicely. The new spring foliage makes me think I don't need to envy the fall foliage color of gardeners in colder climates. My spring foliage is pretty too.
For other Wednesday Vignettes, visit Anna at Flutter & Hum.
All material © 2012-2019 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
Your garden is looking so incredibly lush, Spring is going to be a delight. Rain can be too much of a good thing though and I feel for those whose homes are at risk of mudslides.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry about the raccoons. Here, Ptolemy pheasant has pecked all the blooms off the Narcissus 'Toto' that I planted just last autumn. He clearly didn't get the memo about daffodils being poisonous.
I hope Ptolemy got a nasty stomachache in return for the trouble he caused you, Jessica!
DeleteYour garden looks so spooky in the mist. Your new spring foliage is definitely just as pretty as autumn foliage elsewhere. I hope the wet keeps the raccoons maybe a little bit at bay.
ReplyDeleteIt seems my expectation about the raccoons being put off by rain was delusional, Alison. Either that, or they got started with their digging last night before the rain got heavy. I found signs of disruption in several areas this morning and got caught in a downpour myself while trying to shift muddy soil back into place.
DeleteSo green and pretty with all the rain. Sorry that the raccons continue to be such pests!
ReplyDeleteI keep trying to remind myself that the raccoons provide a service in removing snails and slugs but sometimes it gets hard to forgive them for the grub-fests.
DeleteSlide alerts aside, the gardener side of you must be thrilled with all that moisture... I like the idea of using nursery flats for protection. I hope it keeps those pesky diggers at bay.
ReplyDeleteI could probably use 2-3 times the number of nursery flats, Anna. I suspect many of the seeds I sowed directly are a lost cause - or that any seedlings that survive will turn up in some unexpected part of the garden.
DeleteWe had quite the raccoon party last night too. They love looking for grubs in the sheet-mulched paths but haven't done much damage around plants. Disturbed soil is what they're after. If you have spare rocks you can weight down the flats with them. Incredible how socked in you are!
ReplyDeleteI initially used metal lawn pins to help hold the flats in place but, even when I don't do that, they don't seem to move the flats around much, if at all. However, that doesn't keep them from digging between and around the edges of the flats. The botanic garden created taller piles of flats arranged higgledy-piggledy over the beds.
DeleteThose rotten raccoons. I would be enraged. I am enraged for you so you can just go along. ;) Your amazing rain amounts are bringing spring garden into fruition. It is looking grand with all of the colors.
ReplyDeleteThe raccoons are wearing me down, Lisa, but, as I mentioned to Peter, I keep trying to be mindful of the fact that they perform some service in keeping snails and slugs under control.
DeleteI guess I was lucky to fly out yesterday ahead of that storm, which made national news. A powerful one! Mixed precip. here now in Tahoe and more gray weather ahead.
ReplyDeleteThanks again for the tours, so enjoyable seeing it in person and meeting up. You really have a fabulous garden. Love the Xylosma, very like fall foliage in MA.
Sorry you are being plagued by raccoons. Maybe it's time for an electric perimeter fence! :) https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/zareba-ac-garden-protector-electric-fence-kit?cm_vc=-10005#
I'm glad your flight was problem-free, Eliza. The light-show might have been interesting viewed from a plane window but I expect having your plane hit by lightning would be pretty scary.
DeleteI seriously looked at the electric fence, reading all the reviews and Q&As. With my luck Pipig would choose to run off in the wrong direction and get shocked. The Q&A warn of use around animals under 10 lbs.
I’ve got some extra flats, I’ll be right over.... (I wish...)
ReplyDeleteWhile I clearly need more flats (the buggers rummaged through the garden again last night despite the muddy soil), you don't need to arrive carrying any when you eventually get an opportunity to visit, Loree!
DeleteGlad the Xylosma is doing well. There's an old hedge (early 1970's) of them in the neighborhood, well tended, and it is a beautiful screen.
ReplyDeleteYour raccoon problem is terrible. Sorry to see that. It must be generations of the masked invaders that find your property so attractive. How to get them to go elsewhere?
Oh yes, I think our property must be on a map on the wall of the raccoons' familial den, HB. We had a group of 3 young ones, presumably siblings, come by on a regular basis last year. I still see 2 of them stroll by our living room window on occasion (before I chase them off) but they do most of their work in the wee hours. They were back again last night. So much for my theory (hope) that rain sodden soil would keep them away for a couple of nights.
DeleteThose rascals are difficult to keep out of the garden. Maybe a nursery will have a few extra flats.
ReplyDeleteWe don't get to see the colorful xylosma foliage here because the deer eat new growth. Need to put one behind the fence.
At least I don't have deer, Shirley!
DeleteThe peachy tones of your hedge plant are just gorgeous, all the more so with light coming through them.
ReplyDeleteWhew, you all are getting not just rain but real _storms_, the kinds we only get in high summer. Glad you're not socked in often, but it's an effect with a (somewhat spooky) magic all its own.
There was an article in today's LA Times, Nell, in which someone stated that only Southern Californians would be fixated on the high volume of lightning pulses as real weather is an unusual phenomenon here.
DeleteWith the weather blurring out everything which is not garden, yours looks stunning!
ReplyDeleteEssentially, we spent the whole day wrapped inside a big cloud, Diana. It is a little spooky (like an episode from the old TV series 'Twilight Zone') but at the same time it's nice to feel cut off from the rest of the world sometimes.
DeleteWhat a great idea! I may very well try this - the problem around here isn't racoons, but those dang rabbits. I now know how Elmer Fudd feels ;)
ReplyDeleteAlthough they've always been present in the nearby areas, I had my first experience with rabbits invading my own garden last year. Cute as they are, the damage they create was infuriating and I was channeling Elmer Fudd myself, Margaret.
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