Monday, July 6, 2020

Sweet smell of nature


Caster oil, garlic oil, cloves, fish meal, cat food, urea, fish oil, and best of all, putrescent whole egg solids.
No, not my latest shopping list, but instead a defensive weapon all swirled together into a handy spray.

          Here’s the cause:

         
 



What used to be my hostas.




  

 



What might be black-eyed Susans if they ever manage to sprout beyond two leaves before being munched down to nubs.

      


    And what could be the cone flowers I bought last year, but might be something else. I’ll never know if my effort at closing the buffet fails.

          It was literally a case of one day they’re there, and the next they’re not.

          The rabbits here are so plentiful I’ve seen four at play on a front lawn, chasing each other back and forth, which will likely mean that many more before long.

          But I suspect I can’t lay all the destruction at the rabbit’s little doors. They had accessories in my garden’s annihilation. I’d put two layers of one-foot high fencing around the hostas, which had already had a few nibbles removed. It would have taken a pole-vaulting bunny to get in, and yet one day I found that three plants had been almost completely denuded of their leaves.

          Thus the trip to the garden center and the big bottle of repellent, claiming to be effective against everything from a vole to an elk. Going straight from the store to the backyard, bottle in hand, I squirted and sprayed. And then almost keeled over at the most disgusting, gut-wrenching smell I’ve ever encountered.

          Good news - in a couple of weeks my plants will bounce back and I’ll have flowers once again. Bad news - our porch overlooks the garden and our time there will be pretty limited until the smell dies down. 


         

6 comments:

  1. I didn't know hostas were so tasty to so many critters. I hope the smell goes away soon but the good juju stays. :-)

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  2. Ack.
    I hope it works and you have all my sympathies. Years ago my partner gleefully spread 40 kilos of dynamic lifter fertiliser on our lawns and gardens. Dynamic lifter is essentially chicken shit. And the smell very pungent (particularly in summer). He spent the days at work and came home after sundown when it was cooler. I did not.

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  3. Good luck breaking whatever's bad habit.

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  4. I sure hope it works! I would gladly give you some of my black eyed Susan - they grow all over the place and nobody seems to want to eat them here! -Jenn

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  5. I'm glad you were able to buy that spray and not have to suffer through the mixing of all those ingredients yourself. There's an eye-watering thought.
    Have you considered enclosing the entire garden bed inside a glasshouse type dome? Like a giant terrarium, so you could still see it but the bunnies and others couldn't eat any of it.

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  6. I thought you were going to say snails and slugs were responsible. And I thought WE had it bad! Do you think deer might be snacking on them?

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Thanks for stopping by and I'd love to hear what you think.