Perhaps it's too early for the frightening tales associated with Halloween but let me explain the title of this post. Something Wicked This Way Comes is a novel published by Ray Bradbury in 1962. I read it as a teenager and became a big Bradbury fan in the process. It's indicative of the impact the book had on me that its title was the first thing that popped into my head yesterday morning when I saw this:
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| Despite my efforts to prevent them from digging in the barrels containing Dahlias 'Catching Fire' and 'Karma Prospero' in my front garden, the raccoons wreaked havoc digging for grubs in these barrels (again) |
Wikipedia describes Bradbury's book as the story of two 13-year old boys and "their nightmarish experience with a traveling carnival." What better description of rampaging raccoon activity can there be than a "nightmarish traveling carnival"?
The raccoons had rummaged through three half-barrels containing dahlias and assorted companion plants this past weekend, damaging some of these in the process. In an effort to put them off, I cut up a few empty plastic flats, pinning them in place in the spots devoid of plants. (There had been more plants in the barrels when originally planted but some declined during our heatwaves and others were torn to pieces by the masked marauders.) Covering bare soil with plastic flats has worked relatively well with the raised planters in my cutting garden in the past, although I can't claim it's ever been 100 percent effective.
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| The raccoons dug up the raised planters earlier in the season but, as my summer-season plants declined, I pulled many of them and laid down full-sized plastic flats anchored in place using lawn staples wherever possible. It's not pretty but it's a moderately effective deterrent. |
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| I did the same on Sunday with 2 of the 5 barrels in the front garden, working around the dahlias and remaining companion plants; however, I had to cut the flats into pieces to fit them in. I did the same with a third barrel in my cutting garden that the raccoons had dug up twice. |
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| Only the barrel in the cutting garden holding Dahlia 'Lavender Ruffles' was left untouched |
Both of the dahlias in the barrels in the front garden that were torn up still have buds and blooms so I'm not prepared to dig up the tubers just yet even though their foliage is already badly mildewed. I've made another stab at beefing up the protection against further intrusions.
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| I repositioned the plastic pieces and added spiky cones dropped by the Magnolia tree around them. The cones have helped to deter raccoons before. More would be helpful but I only had so many on hand. |
If this doesn't work I may need to start nightly patrols of the garden.
In other evidence that all is not well in my garden, I found this last week when I was checking the back slope for sources of irrigation leaks:
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| We removed our dying mimosa tree (Albizia julibrissin) 2 years ago but it's been attempting a comeback ever since. I'd neglected our back slope for 3 weeks or thereabouts only to be confronted with this "seedling," nearly 3 feet tall. I'd swear it wasn't there when I last deep watered the lemon tree. This seedling was a substantial distance from the former tree's location and on an entirely different level of the garden. |
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| My husband made quick work of digging it up but I'm afraid he may not have gotten the entire root. If that's the case, it may be back... |
On the good news end, we were on the receiving end of a brief thunderstorm late yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, I was mid-way through my daily walk of the neighborhood. I got completely soaked before my husband came to my rescue in his truck. But we got 0.11/inch of rain, which filled my empty 50-gallon collection tank. I can't accurately estimate how much was collected by my other two tanks but they both accumulated at least a bit!
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| The rainbow that followed the downpour wasn't vivid but it's there! |
All material © 2012-2022 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
A large part of gardening seems to be finding ways to ward off uninvited guests. The results are usually not as aesthetically pleasing as we would like. Here we have wire cages around trees and shrubs to ward off porcupines, netting to keep out unwanted insects and dangly things in the fruit trees and shrubs to scare off the birds. The alarming thing is how much smarter they seem to be getting in avoiding all these strategic interventions. Hmm.
ReplyDeletePorcupines! I've got lots of wire cages around individual plants too, although most of those were put in place to keep the rabbits away. The raccoons had left us mostly alone through spring and summer so I'd become complacent about protection to keep those brutes at bay - I should have realized that I was gardening on borrowed time. You're so right that the critters learn to outsmart us. That was especially true with the squirrels but, when I let the bird feeders go empty earlier this year, their population dropped dramatically. I'm sure they'll be back the minute I refill those feeders this winter :(
Delete"nightmarish traveling carnival" as a description for raccoons sounds perfect to me, they're such little asshats. As for that mimosa seedling, wow! And how sweet for your husband to come pick you up on your wet walk, that just made my heart happy.
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I'd had a brief discussion before I headed out on my walk when I heard the first rumble of thunder in the distance. He said he thought that, even if it moved our way, it'd probably be more than a half-hour before the storm reached us. I jokingly asked if he just wanted to get rid of me and took off. I expect he was chagrined when thunder boomed overhead and the skies opened up 10 minutes later! Even running (hard on my bad knee), it was going to take me more than 5 minutes to get home again so I was glad to see his truck headed my way.
DeleteI hear you with the challenges of digging creatures. For me, it's chipmunks and squirrels. But to be honest, the rabbits are much worse because they eat the plants and kill them. Lots of fencing and lava rocks and rabbit-repellent in this garden. Argh. Good luck with your critter-repelling efforts!
ReplyDeleteMy experience with rabbits is relatively recent. We didn't see any here until about 3 years ago and even neighbors who've lived here 20+ years longer than we have claim they'd never had problems with them before then. I've got to wonder if all the anxiety about coyotes have led people to take action in eliminating these predators into their own hands, tipping the scales of the natural balance that kept rabbits below the radar in previous years. In any case, I'm slowly getting used to caging all my new plants against the rabbits, which will seemingly eat just about anything!
DeleteUgh, how frustrating with the "masked marauders"... I have read that Bradbury book too, but it was a long time ago, and I didn't quite understand it. I was pretty new in the US when I read it. Maybe I should give it another read to see if I interpret it differently now that my English is better...
ReplyDeleteI read the Bradbury book decades ago myself, Anna, and only have vague recollections of the plot but I still remember the sense of foreboding it conveyed. Evil was just below the surface of what seemed like a peaceful facade.
DeleteCongratulations on your downpour. I’m sure it was worth getting soaked for!
ReplyDeleteIt was! And we got another downpour, also very brief, the following morning so we now have a cumulative total of 0.18/inch for the new "water year" that started October 1st. We're currently showing a 45% chance of light rainfall early Saturday as well :)
DeleteI met Ray Bradbury at a writing class. He was super-nice and very down to earth.
ReplyDeleteI put sections of hardware cloth flat on the soil to keep diggers out. They don't like to scratch at metal. Those plastic trays are a good idea, but I don't come by many.
There are little divots in the garden here.-- possums? Racoons? Nothing serious. I want to get a trail cam to figure out all the creatures who stop by in the night and splash all the water out of the fountain basin. We've been hearing an Owl at night, but not the usual Great Horned and not the Barn. Some other species. I try to watch the youtube of all the North American owl calls, but the puppies start howling...
Rain was a wonderful surprise. Every plant washed clean of dust!
How neat that you met Bradbury! I should reread some of his books one day.
DeleteI've accumulated the plastic flats over years since I noticed that the local botanic garden covered areas of the volunteer garden with them, presumably to keep critters out. I bought a LOT of flats of creeping thyme in the early days after removing our lawn and the local garden center is happy to send customers off with their purchases sitting in those same flats.
My guess is that the dainty little holes in your garden are the work of possums. The raccoons dig bigger, deeper holds and trash every plant in the vicinity in the process - their usual calling card here are the shells they remove from the fountain and toss about. I hear owls here too but rarely catch sight of them.
I have found a solution to racoons digging up plants, at least for my yard. I put fist-sized river rocks to cover the soil. If you have muscular racoons you may need to use the larger-size river rocks.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm planting seeds, I roll down hardware cloth or cut it to fit on top of the soil in a pot before I plant my seeds. Of course this only works if what you're planting has stems small enough to fit in the square. And you cannot use chicken wires because the holes are too big and soil can be dug anyway.
I think "my" raccoons must lift weights, Sally. During our recent plumbing pipe replacement, the plumbers dug up a lot of rocks, some of which were heavy for me to pick up. (Our property was part of a rock quarry in the 1940s.) I tried laying those atop the soil in the first barrel the raccoons dug up only to have them roll them out of the way. That said, if I make digging in any particular area a sufficient hassle for them, they seem to look elsewhere for opportunities. However, the hardware cloth may be worth a try, at least in areas where I'm sowing seed.
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