Summer 2011

orphan garden evolves

well almost.  I thought it might be fun to post some nature blogs.

First, I notice this year we are really feeling the deer damage to my husband’s lovely plantings.  You would think with 62 acres of munchies out there: multi-flora roses; bush honey suckle; and wild flowers, they would not need our roses and evergreens.However, they have been chomping away for weeks…winter right into summer.

Out of desperation last week, and not wanting to pay $11 for a small bottle of liquid deer fence, Radames made his own concoction of liquid deer fence.  He found it on the web and it just smells bad:  marinated raw eggs, some tabasco sauce and who knows what else.  This was poured into some old-time sprayer that was unearthed from one of the many:  ”I might need that some day”  collections scattered around the farm.  The concoction has led to a little over a week of uneaten hosta leaves and rose petals.

Also, as another solution to the deer management conundrum, Radames created a new garden.  Well, he actually just defined it with fencing and posts.  Like many of the gardens he has organized, this one sprung from what was something else, for several years, the Orphan Garden.  Each time he needed to get rid of a plant, thin an area out, he would put the plant in the Orphan Garden and not just compost it.  The Orphan Garden  was just a space in the middle of all the other gardens.  Each year we have noticed its expansion, so this year, the threat of deer eminent, the Orphan Garden has become defined by fencing.

As gardens due, it is evolving, taking on a life of its own as it grows into something else and the plants overgrown here are moved to other places to make room…

©claireaperez@gmail.com

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~ by claireaperez on June 20, 2011.