The Rabbits Strike Again!
April 17, 2008
The first crocus are up and now blooming. I took these shots yesterday - I chose this giant variety to line some of my pathways. I intended for them to come up kind of randomly placed around the edges of some stone pathways in the yard, and they should look like this:
But instead, I got mostly this:
A full 80% of the crocus I planted last fall have been eaten! I don’t know if these can recover or not, with some new shoots; the bulbs need to store energy from the sun in the foliage in order to bloom again next year, and they’ve been mowed short at the ground. Anyway, case in point for fencing the vegetable garden.
I don’t begrude those hungry mama rabbits for eating the first green shoots, but it sure is frustrating. They’ve even been trying to taste the rosebushes.
After a gorgeous 70+ day yesterday, we’re getting rain today. I spent the morning putting in some semi-permanent woodchip paths in one section of the veggie garden, before the rains started. My idea is to divide into beds I can plant intensively, and reach across from either side, eliminating a lot of the unused space. I hope to mulch better this year, cut down on weed growth – and if I really get inspired, put in a drip system. Too wet for pictures of the paths today!
Entry Filed under: bulbs, crocus, flowers, garden, gardening. .
3 Comments Add your own
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <pre> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed
1.
blackbird2 | April 17, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Oh, no! One year, just as our green peas were beginning to show lots of promise, in one night, rabbits ate the entire 30 foot row of new green. As a certain cartoon character would say, “Pesky Wabbits!”
2.
minnesotagardener | April 17, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Oh no. Sorry about your peas. We fenced most of the vegetables after the infamous cabbage incident; the following year they mowed down a row of bush green beans, and so we fenced in the other side as well. The toughest thing is when they eat annuals you’ve spent a lot of time on. Last year I used a smelly critter spray that was pretty effective.
3.
Deb | April 19, 2008 at 5:46 am
Well, they WERE beautiful. I suppose now they’re fertilizer.