Do you have a green thumb?

What do you say, do you have a green thumb?

My mom has always said I could get anything to grow. Well here's an interesting example. Last year my garden club friends and I made Hydrangea wreaths. This spring I took one out of my house and hung it on the shed. It quickly lost it's beautiful shades of blue and green but I still left it there.

One day I walked by only to notice that the straw wreath I used as a base was now sprouting. I just know my mom would say "see, you can even get a dry straw wreath to grow".

Today my oldest daughter is off to school again...time to be a mom...

By the way, one of these days I'll take some photos of how to make a Hydrangea wreath. Kim, I'll need your help!

Dogs Versus Cats as the Ultimate garden pet

(Man's best friend)

If you are a gardener and are thinking of getting a pet, here's some timely advice.

Get a cat. Dog's are cute and might be mans best friend but when it comes to gardening, they will make your blood pressure POP!

Cat's slink around the plants in your garden.
Good cat.

Dog's thunder through the plants in your garden.
Bad dog.

Cats will hunt down any vole, mouse, chipmunk or bunny eating up your garden.
Good cat.

Dogs will chase any vole, mouse, chipmunk or bunny through your garden, decimate a 15 foot swath and come up empty handed with a big goofy grin on their face.

Bad dog.

(What makes you think I was sniffing down that chipmunk hole again?)

Cats will wait patiently at the opening of a chipmunk hole for hours until the wee creature emerges and then pounce.
Good cat.

Dogs will dig out that chipmunk hole so far that you will be looking at China (most likely a Chinese gardener with a dog will be peering back at you).
Bad dog.

Cats are nice and quiet so you can hear yourself think. When a visitor comes by you can actually have a conversation.
Good cat.

Dogs are loud, rude and disruptive. Even if you put them in the house, shut all the windows and doors, you will have to ask your visitor to walk 50 feet down the driveway before you can carry on any kind of conversation with them.
Bad dog.

(If you think I can't still hear you, you're wrong!)

When cats dig holes in your garden, it's to bury their business.
Good cat.

When dogs dig holes in your garden, it's just for fun, and never where you need a new hole.
Bad dog.

(Yes, I know the compost heap was on the other side of this wall, I just wanted to dig on this side.)

You can carry home the biggest bag of cat food and not hurt your back.
Good cat.

If you try to carry a bag of dog food without wearing a hernia belt you will find yourself making best friends with the chiropractor.
Bad dog.

Cats do not steal your every garden tool and barbeque utensil every time you turn your head.
Good cat.

Dogs will steal anything not nailed down and chew the living daylights out of it. They will stoop so far as to stick their head under the barbeque vinyl cover just to get a hold of that scrubby grill brush that smells like burnt meat.
Bad dog.

When a cat is inside the house it will not enter a room if the door is shut.
Good cat.

When you have lever door knobs, your dog will figure out how to open any door they desire.
Bad dog.

(Of course I didn't make that mess. You should be more careful with your trash.)

Cats give themselves baths.
Good cat.

(I don't know what you're talking about. I like that smell.)

Dogs never give themselves baths. They will run through every mud puddle in the garden, prance around in a rain storm, attack the sprinkler and then balk at standing in the bathtub unless you join them. Then when they are soaking wet and you turn your back they will make a run for it, open doors and lay down on your bed, on YOUR pillow, not your husbands pillow.

Bad dog.

(Hey! How are you supposed to get a drink around here?)

(What do you mean by "this couch is for people"?)

At the worst a cat will use a plant marker as a back scratcher.
Good cat.

At its best a dog will chew your plant marker only enough so that you can still make out the name (but you will have no hope for finding out where it came from).
Bad dog.

(No words necessary)

Every cat I've had has come when I've called its name.
Good cat.

When I call my one dog by her name she looks at me with that teen-age look. (I see your lips moving but all I hear is Blah, Blah, Blah.)
Bad dog.

(Table? What table? How was I supposed to know not to sleep on the table?)

Cats sleep all day while you are working and then do what ever they do at night while you are sleeping.
Good cat.

Dogs drive you crazy all day long and then try to sleep on your bed while you are laying exhausted in it at night.
Bad dog.

Thus goes one week with Calie the wonder-dog. After a harrowing week of chasing my labradoodle Calie around the yard as she devasted multiple plantings, decimated a family of bunnies and traumatized a colony of chipmunks I've decided to post the pro's and con's to having a dog or cat. Before we had Calie, we were always a cat family so I know well what that was like.

My yard is totally trampled!
ARRRRGGGHHHH.

Voles - Part Two

Hi Pat and all,

Here's what I learned about voles yesterday from an avid Hosta collector. Voles are voracious eaters in the spring. You can make poison balls to put down their holes. This is what you will need:

Heavy duty rubber gloves
Heavy duty plastic bags
Plastic container for mixing (that you can throw away)
Rat Poison in a bar form
Cheap Peanut Butter

Put the rat poison in a plastic bag and bang with a hammer or mallet until it is very crumbled. Mix crumbled poison together with cheap peanut butter.
Break off pieces and roll into balls like little meatballs.
Stuff balls into vole holes.

You can freeze the unused poison balls if you do not have children around and clearly mark the container.

Saftey precaution: Wear heavy duty rubber gloves at all times. Do not use any utensils that will later come in contact with food. Preferably work in an area that will not come in contact with food (garage? shed?) Dispose of any containers that were in contact with the poison.

Stan also told me that he has great luck in the fall with the clay pot/trap/peanut butter method that was in my previous post. When I explained my dilemma about taking voles out of the traps he told me that he disposes of the whole thing, trap & vole. Traps are sold cheap, in multiple packs at the supermarket.

Good luck and let me know your favorite way to eliminate voles!
Melanie

Voles & The Queen of Backhanded Compliments

There is a woman I know from one of my garden clubs who is the "Queen of Backhanded Compliments". You know the kind, as a group of people tour your garden and wonder out loud at the beauty she steps up and says "oh yes, Melanie's garden is beautiful, for an amateur".

Yesterday I was granted a phone call from the "Queen of Backhanded Compliments". It's a wonder how this woman can know so much about everything there is to know. She's just a fountain full of knowledge and will gladly spill out and flood you with more information than you could possibly desire. In a highpitched, artificial voice (imagine Dame Edna with a nasally New York twang) the pearls of wisdom just come streaming out. Funny thing is most of the things she spouts are wrong! When talking to her in person, my favorite moment comes when she looks astonished that you didn't know the fact that she has just shared with you.

So here we were, talking about pets and I mentioned that ever since our cat died we've been noticing vole holes in the garden. I was promptly informed that she never has any voles in her garden because she incorporates daffodils with her daylilies. Did you know that Daffodils keep the voles away? Well, amazingly so, neither did I. As a matter of fact, I thought it was frittilaria that kept Moles away but no, I was wrong. All you have to do is plant lots and lots of daffodils around your daylilies and the voles won't come near them.

Imagine my surprise yesterday as I cleared the leaf debris around some emerging daffodils only to find a vole hole not more than 2 inches from the daffodil foliage. It turned out the ground was around those daffodils was riddled with vole holes, not unlike a piece of swiss cheese. Somebody should really educate those stupid voles.

Voles are little mice-like creatures that tunnel thoughout your garden and munch their way through the Hosta and Daylily roots all winter long. I've read of many different ways to rid your garden of these pests but have always found having cats was the best way. Another method that sounds reasonable is to put some peanut butter on a mouse trap, place it near the hole and cover both with an upside down clay flower pot. It seems to work for others but I just can't imagine removing the pot and finding a vole in the trap. What am I supposed to do with it then? Yuck! And what if the poor creature is not dead but only crippled. Or horror of horrors, you are in the garden and hear the trap snap? Nope, can't do that one.

How not to get rid of voles is something I'm an expert on. I thought I had it all figured out. Voles have several tunnel entrances and exits. My husband Don had a new leaf blower with an attachment that fit over the end. The attachment had a long pointed tip, kind of like an elongated funnel. Ok, I could place that long tip into one hole and turn on the blower. Surely the terrified vole would come running out of one of the exits. But what was I to do then? I knew my instinct would be to run in the other direction.

Ah Ha! At the time we had a wonderful cat named Olive who was a fantastic hunter. She had only missed this one spot in the garden. I could hold Olive under one arm and blast the hole with the leaf blower with the other arm. As soon as the vole popped up out of the exit I would release Olive and she would take care of the final extermination.

Ready...Set...Go.... On when the blower, Olive freaked out, clawed her way up my side, shoulder, neck and tried to perch on my head. I ran around the yard shrieking like a banshee and the vole never even popped up for a look. Stupid vole.

Melanie