WWQP Bulletin Board Chat

Furry-tailed rats

Heather, I wondered if the black flies had 'gotcha' up there in northern Ontario where they grow them pretty big, including the mosquitoes as well...It's a rainy day here in southern Ontario and knowing of two weddings planned in the area, disappointed brides will be waking up to heavily overcast skys and raindrops. The grass will like it, growing as it is like a weed, which is mainly what our field grass is..we're happy for anything green. People in the area, including ourselves, are experiencing a lot of bare patches due to grubs or something. The skunks dig the grass up to look for grubs so between the two things, whatever is causing it, a friend in town lost her entire backyard of grass this year and will need to reseed or resod it.

The pollen has been bad in California, I gather, from a cyber friend there. Other than sneezing, the pollen doesn't bother me but a lot of people are complaining about it here as well.

And, Sara, the furry-tailed rats you're referring to would be squirrels in our area. I fried some plants earlier this week in wine barrels, having covered them in plastic the night before due to impending frost, then didn't remove them in the morning and the sun and humidity created by the greenhouse effect, meant that I was left with brown and wilting plants...my own negligence caused another $64.00 to be spent, if not more, on plantings that have not been put out as yet. But it's the squirrels that one employee of the garden centre to comment as I took the last load of plants home, who said: good luck, I hope the squirrels don't dig them all up. I've countered this problem with putting about 8 " sticks all throughout my pots and wine barrel plantings. It looks odd for now but once the plants take and the squirrels attention to the nice soft soil diminishes, they don't seem to dig in those areas. We also don't have an abundance of oak trees around the house so burying nuts isn't a great problem although they seem to find them somewhere and I have to watch come fall that my flowers aren't tipped over with winter food storage for the squirrels. Can't blame them either; I feel the same way when winter comes on, we have to prepare for it too.

Hard to think of Florida as dry.

Rosey

posted by RoseyP @ 5:00 AM