A Balanced Garden
Report From PIA – December 3
This afternoon I arrived home around 2:30, and promptly sat down with my laptop, wondering what I should write about today. As I sat thinking, the small, wisest part of me said, “You won’t find something unless you go out and look.” So I went outdoors to work in the garden.
It’s very windy today, but mild for December, so I took the garden cart to the lakeside perennial bed and began cutting stalks. The first thing that struck me was that the wind was strong enough to ring one of the smaller bells on arbor. Most of the time the sound of the wind blowing through trees was louder than the bell, and I appreciated that it was nature, not a manmade sound, that predominated. In fact, the occasional soft tinkling mixed in with more predominant windy gusts seemed just right.
As I cut the perennial stems down, I discovered another reason for clearing the garden before winter. If you read my postings on Nov 30th and Dec 1st, you know that I’ve been talking about the benefits of clearing a perennial garden in the fall, and the advantages of leaving those plants until spring.
One of those reasons for leaving the garden alone is that the spent plants provide shelter and food for wildlife. Today, I found another reason to remove the perennials: they provide shelter and food for wildlife…just not the sort of wildlife I want to encourage.
Two years ago I planted perennial sweet peas on the edge of this bed, intending that the plants would cascade over the stonewall and soften the massive boulders. They did tumble over the rocks, but they also grew into a dense mat that covered large sections in the back of this bed. When I walked up to snip the old sweet pea stalks, and pull the mass out of the garden, my feet sank into the ground. Something was tunneling underneath the surface.
Once the sweet pea foliage was cleared, I could see entry holes and surface gullies where the animals have been traveling. Moles, voles or chipmunks? I’m not sure, but the little darlings have devoured the roots and crown of all of the Baptisia in this area. This is not what I had in mind when I spoke of the wisdom of providing food and shelter for wildlife.
Next year I’ll dig the sweet peas and plant them elsewhere. The rootless stalks of Baptesia got taken to the compost, and instead of replanting these rodent delicacies, I’ll plant some Digitalis, Nicotiana, or something else that’s poisonous.
In case moles are at work, I dropped some of the Mole Worms, sent to me by the Liquid Fence people, down the holes and in the obvious tunnels. I’ll use some other repellants such as cayenne pepper as well, and clearing the plants from this area will help expose the critters to local predators such as owls, skunks, coyote and fox.
I’m not happy that some of my plants have been eaten, or that there is a warren of tunnels that create ankle-turning spongy areas throughout this garden. But I’m not willing to declare all out war, and seed this garden with synthetic poisons.
I am hoping that my strategy of bringing the area into balance will help. I want the human presence in my garden to blend as seamlessly, and as secondarily, as the gentle tinkling of a bell amid a robust, gusting wind.
It would take a gale to ring the heavy metal bells, but today the wind rang the coral ceramic bell with ease.
In front of the cart is the foliage from just one perennial sweet pea plant.
The dark areas are gullies - critter highways, really - that were under the sweet pea stems and leaves.
December 3rd, 2009 at 5:30 PM
Sorry to hear about the destruction of all your Baptisia crowns. Congratulations on not putting down poisons to discourage the varmints .
December 4th, 2009 at 5:52 AM
Good Morning: Gardens are funny, they do things their way even though
you think you have control of them. You don’t you are just the
assistant. You can guide them, help them and they let you think you have control. Do You? Your post today shows how Gardens and Mother Nature do their thing. They are a visitor in your world as you are too there’s.
As you learn to blend with them they do the same with you and all is great.
Good post shows that you and your gardens love each other.
Have a wonderful day,
John
December 5th, 2009 at 8:46 AM
Enjoying the conversation about balance in the garden, it’s always a struggle between the gardener’s will and nature’s balancing act. For me, it’s the voles who are the destructive critters, they especially love to eat tuberous roots and bulbs (Liatris, Asclepias tuberosa, etc) so I usually clean those beds up to keep the voles from getting too comfy through the winter. The chipmunks seem to just use the existing vole tunnels, I don’t think they dig the tunnels or are destructive to plants, our chipmunks only seem interested in storing up nuts for winter…. I also encourage my dogs to check out those vole holes when they are outdoors, maybe it’ll keep ‘em running too scared to choose that garden for their winter home!
December 5th, 2009 at 2:13 PM
Ellen,
I’m thinking that I might have voles too. Since moles eat worms, grubs and the like, and my Baptisia crowns and roots were devoured, I’m leaning toward blaming the voles. So my next decision is, do I leave them and hope that the natural predators take care of the problem? Or do I put out mousetraps baited with raw potato and become a predator myself? I’m not sure about the best next step…
December 7th, 2009 at 6:04 AM
If they are eating the roots and crowns it is definitely voles! If you don’t have cats or dogs or other local predators to call upon then I think you would logically have to be the predator yourself
I have never tried to kill them off, I just smash in their holes when I find them, and try to keep that area inhospitable to them until the ground freezes and they can’t dig new tunnels….
December 7th, 2009 at 6:10 AM
Ellen,
Great comment about the ground freezing making it impossible for the voles to dig new holes… gets me thinking about soaking the area right before low temps are predicted and smashing those tunnels and filling the holes. Hmmmm… force them out into the cold!
December 7th, 2009 at 3:20 PM
Exactly. They can go somewhere else to create their underground living and dining chambers
December 7th, 2009 at 4:15 PM
From your lips to God’s ears, Ellen!
December 9th, 2009 at 3:47 PM
Hmmmm, we just got 8″ of early snowfall before the ground had a chance to freeze solid. NOT good news for preventing voles from taking up residence now under the protective cover of snow. I predict vole damage next spring