Relentless

We're running short on places to put the snow. Another foot or more a few days ago. Frigid temperatures in the forecast again this week.

Meanwhile, the deer move through the woods in the backyard.

Beautiful fawns

We stumbled onto these babies in the woods behind our house this weekend. Brian spotted them just a few feet from where he was foraging for moss for making hanging baskets. He and the silly dog must have unintentionally spooked their mama and she took off. Fortunately, the silly dog didn't see the twins; Brian hustled Dakota back to the house and told me to get the camera.

We watched the fawns for a couple of minutes. They were still wet and may have just been delivered. They huddled together and tried to make themselves as small as possible on the forest floor. The Minnesota DNR says very young fawns have almost no scent and instinctively lie still -- adaptations that help them elude predators.

We left after taking a few photos -- we were sure their mother was nearby and wanting to tend to her twins. We felt privileged to have seen them.

The Hotel Sillydog

Do you think the deer are getting a little too comfortable around here? This one apparently was just waking up from a snooze in the backyard about 6:45 a.m. a couple of days ago.

Through the home office window this morning

There is one patch of bare ground in the yard. In a semi-sheltered area near the back hill. Southern exposure. Can you say deer magnet?

Two reasons why we cage trees and shrubs

 1. This doe about to enter the yard.

 2. And this doe already in the vegetable garden, trying to snack on the remains inside the pepper house.

Both were midmorning visitors on Tuesday.

Not-so-sweet surrender

Reemay on a pitchfork was meant to be a temporary scarecrow. Now it's simply a symbol of surrender.

I'm over it now. Really. I am. Over. It.

Disappointment hung thick around here for a couple of days. Overnight, the much-anticipated Dutch crocus extravaganza was gone. Those bright, bold, sassy Crocus optimistas are now in the bellies of the almost-resident deer herd.

 The Dutch crocus show was off to a good start.

I thought everything was OK. The show was just opening; I sprinkled Milorganite. The live trap was set in a strategic position in case of rabbits. I feasted my eyes on what already was and imagined the potential. Although the deer had been noticeably absent in recent days, we made plans to spray Plantskydd, a nasty but generally effective animal deterrent with dried blood as a main component. 

The deer must have overheard our plans. They came in the night before the planned spraying and by morning the blossoms were gone. Those sweet, silky cups of color had been neatly excised, along with the tips of their foliage.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhh!

 Foliage stubs are all that's left. The plants aren't completely toast; hopefully we'll get more foliage growth this spring for another try at blooming next year.

Other than a serious (make that expensive!) fence, there's really very little that stands between a hungry deer and a tender morsel. I'm not sure the Plantskydd would have been completely effective although it certainly would have helped. I mean, really, even if sprayed with repellent, a patch of succulent, fresh blooms would be hard to resist after a steady diet of brown twigs. 

A motion-activated sprinkler might have worked, but those are useful only when there's no danger of frost at night. Still a little too early for that.

So the crocus are gone, but the nighttime binge did reveal the results of an experiment. Last fall, we planted some Scilla siberica, also called Siberian squill, among the crocus. Scilla has a reputation for being deer-resistant so I (reluctantly) agreed to planting some in the crocus berm. The scilla appear none the worse for the marauding.

It's a tough call. Design-wise, I like the crocus on the berm where they make a statement viewed up close and at a distance. But the location makes it difficult to manage for wildlife. Scilla is pretty, naturalizes well and, given time, could make a nice statement, too. I suspect we'll be planting a lot more of it in the crocus berm come fall.

Scilla (right) is undamaged. Little is left of the crocus (left).

The wildlife garden

This rabbit joined our bunny relocation program.

It may be winter but there's still plenty happening in the garden. Yesterday started and ended with wildlife. Those pesky rabbits were at it again, gnoshing on whatever isn't protected. That means they're chewing on some of the roses in the herb garden that aren't protected by wire cages. So out comes the live trap and sunflower seed bait. Yesterday morning, sometime between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., one of the critters made a wrong move and wham! its breakfast was over. (How do I know there is more than one rabbit? Because one moonlit night I saw three at once bopping around the yard. And, well, they're rabbits -- there's always more than one.) Fortunately, it wasn't that cold and he wasn't in the trap for long. I loaded the trap into the car and released him down the road -- far enough away, I hope, to make a return unlikely.

The deer also have become regular visitors -- we see them almost every night and often during the day as well. They're still having some trouble moving in the deep snow but not so much that they're unable to browse around the bird feeders and scotch pines.

This is just one reason why many of our shrubs and small trees are caged in winter.

In honor of deer

The knock at the door came early, though not unreasonably so. The gentleman said his daughter-in-law had hit and injured a deer on the road. They had called for help but it had been a half-hour already and did we by any chance have a gun? The doe was suffering terribly.

We're not really hunters but we do have a gun and a few minutes later the doe took her last breath and crossed to wherever it is we go when life is gone. Her body lay near the woods on the south side of our property.

Deer are as much a part of our gardening life here as the perennials and trees we plant, the vegetables we nurture, or the red squirrels who help themselves at the bird feeders. We take note of deer-resistant plants, wrap choice shrubs and trees in protective cages through the winter and spread deer repellent in the spring to keep them away from the crocus and tulips. I curse them when I see the damage they do to our plantings, and I love them as I watch them pass gracefully through the yard, looking for food in the winter.

So later in the day, as I was pushing bulbs into the ground near our newly constructed pool, I decided to give this autumn crocus a different name. I will call it the Doe Crocus. Because, after all, the deer are as much a part of our little landscape as we are.

Discerning palates

Perhaps this is why deer seem to seek out and devour my cardoon.
They've also been known to eat the carrots and parsnips. This sign is
from the herb garden in the fabulous New York Botanical Garden.
More about that adventure in a post-to-come.

The buffet at sillydoggarden was open for business last night. The deer visited. Again.

I knew I was courting trouble by planting the last of the cardoon in the unprotected front beds. But I couldn't help myself. Sure enough, this morning all four transplants were found uprooted, tops all gone. Damn deer. And the parsley transplanted last week -- all gone. Damn, damn deer. At least the parsley transplanted Sunday afternoon is still intact. Perhaps the rudbeckia will shield it from those long-legged fiends. But I thought the lady's mantle, euphorbia and witch hazel would shield the cardoon, too. Time will tell, I guess.

Here's what's left of the front-yard cardoon. Notice the
one remaining leaf and formerly healthy roots.

But there's more. Or, actually, less. The Cramers' Amazon celosia, first spotted last year at The Garden House in Solon Springs, Wis., and seed ordered this year from Johnny's Selected Seeds, was chomped. Also on the menu last night, the variegated burnet and the seed dahlias ('Black Beauty' from Thompson & Morgan). The burnet, a perennial, will recover but those dahlias are toast. Fortunately, I also planted them in several other locations and in pots so I'm confident I will get to inspect some blooms at some point. I have more cardoon, too, in pots and in the back beds protected at night by motion-detecting sprinklers. It always pays to plant more than you think you'll need or want.

This one is gone, but not forgotten. I was excited to find the seed for this celosia this spring after buying transplants last year at The Garden House. The maroon and green foliage is what's really killer -- the magenta spiky bloom is merely a bonus. Two neighboring Cramers' Amazon transplants are intact. Keep your fingers crossed
that they'll survive the summer.