My Back Yard

Squirrelogs should be for squirrels, right?

Iggy and I run a Squirrel Cafe, which is meant to feature a corn cob jammed onto a nail for squirrels’ eating pleasure. But dried corn cobs have been in short supply since the ethanol boom started. Iggy hasn’t found them at Agway in months. So, on his last visit to the store, Iggy bought a package of Squirrelogs made of sweet corn flour molded into a corn cob shape. My fluffy-tailed friends don’t like the Squirrelogs as much as the real thing. But they seem to enjoy gnawing on the logs occasionally.

The squirrels had the Squirrelogs all to themselves. Until yesterday, when I noticed some sparrows pecking at the rain-moistened corn product. They came back again today. Next, I noticed a blue jay working on the Squirrelog.

Birds had ignored the traditional corn cobs in the cafe, but now they’ve taken with gusto to the ersatz replacement. The poor squirrels are sharing yet another food source with the birds. In my backyard, there’s no food that’s exclusive to squirrels. The birds get in on all the action. Plus, they have three feeders that hang off a wall of our house where the squirrels can’t reach.

The grackles enjoyed two suet squares and my new “water feature”–a bucket with a tiny hole so water drips into the birdbath below. Grackles’ shimmering blue head feathers are their only subtlety, so I’m much happier about the chickadees and woodpeckers that also visit the suet.

Five raccoons spread themselves over two of my neighbors’ trees around 7:30 p.m.–in broad daylight–on Friday night. Rachel Gooseberry, the mother, has four children of varying sizes. Three of the four seem to hang together. Earlier I saw three heads peering over the edge of the birdbath as they stood on the orange plastic chair Iggy put there years ago to ease the squirrels’ access to water. I worry about child number four, the runt.

Also this week:
* Black-eyed Susan’s bloomed in my yard for the first time. They’re transplants from a neighborhood lady’s garden last fall.
* Most of my Oriental lilies bloomed. They got through the season without any beetle infestations. Hurray!
* A couple of my numerous hostas are finally showing buds, long after the neighbors’.
* Some of my bean and cuke plants have flowered.

Away from the garden, Iggy and I biked 18 1/2 miles from Burlington to Bedford to Billerica and back. Turned around after reaching the historic Middlesex Canal.

Iggy likes to refer to our garden as his garden, even though I planted it. Maybe that means he’s proud of it or he likes how it looks.

Today Iggy shoveled compost out of our bin, into the wheelbarrow, and around the hostas. This will help his garden to grow stronger.

He also shlepped me out to the garden center, where I bought a couple flats of impatiens, a replacement sweet autumn clematis, epimediums, hellebores, and a couple of plants for my containers. Plus ten bags of mulch that’ll eventually go in our front garden.

I enjoyed working in Iggy’s garden today.

My prince has come. My Yaku Prince, that is.

I planted three rhododendrons in my front yard three years ago. Although they had flowers on them at the nursery, they haven’t flowered since I brought them home. Then, on Monday I noticed deep pink buds on two of them. Now three flowers are open.

This offers some consolation for the waning of daffodil season.

I’ve never had much luck growing forget-me-not flowers. So before I sowed my seeds this year, I turned to my aunt for expert gardener advice.

Mix them with sand, then sow them in soil that you’ve loosened up, she said.

So, I’ve done that. Plus I’ve put a daily reminder in my calendar to moisten them. Now I’m on forget-me-not watch. Hoping I’ll spot some shoots in the 1-3 week period it’s supposed to take them to germinate.

My seed packets are old, so I won’t be too disappointed if they fail to grow. At least I know I’m getting them off to a good start this year.

You may know squirrels as a gardener’s worst enemy.

But I thank squirrels for giving my front yard’s garden its distinctive look. Right now my garden looks good enough that one neighbor told Iggy that her friend backed up to take a second look at it.

I could have had a traditional spring bulb garden with brightly colored tulips following hardy crocuses. I could have if I didn’t have lots of bushy-tailed friends flocking to my yard to partake of the sunflower seeds, corn, and peanuts that Iggy and I provide. Planting crocus and tulip bulbs in a squirrel-frequented yard is like announcing “Squirrel party here… come and get’em!”

My garden designer gave my garden great structure with her suggestions of perennials to plant: rhododendrons, andromeda Dorothy Wyckoff, eunonymous Emerald Gaiety, fothergilla gardenii, and Knockout shrub roses.

But I wanted flowers. “What can I buy that the squirrels won’t devour?” She directed me toward small bulb flowers that squirrels don’t care for. I’ve added hyacinthoides hispanica mix, scilla bifolia rosea and armeniacum, and muscari mixtures. They shoot up in brilliant or pale blues, pinks, and white.

My crowning glory, however, comes with the daffodils. I’ve planted gobs of Van Engelen’s Narcissus Grand Collection. They’ve turned my weedy berm into a showcase.

Thank you, squirrels, for pushing me toward these beautiful bulbs!

Atop patio,
lobe of daffodil bulb.
Squirrels play again.

Squirrels don’t like the taste of daffodil bulbs. But that doesn’t stop them from digging them up and dropping them in front of my back stairs. They don’t like my intruding into their space with my flowers.

Squirrels love to eat flower bulbs. My main defense against them is planting bulbs they don’t like. I’m big on daffodils and little spring flowers like the muscari.

Philly.com real estate columnist Al Heavens offers some other strategies in “Outfoxing bulb-thief squirrels.”
* Apply animal urine–your dog’s or the commercially available product from foxes.
* Stake hardware cloth over the sensitive area, but remember to remove it in time to let the bulbs grow up.

I just ordered 1600 bulbs: 500 mixed narcissus, 500 muscari (blue), 500 scilla (blue), and 100 winter aconite (yellow). I’ll be doing a lot of digging this fall.

The narcissus are to replace the daffodils that have petered out under my orange daylilies. The remaining bulbs are early spring bloomers to scatter around my larger plants. I get a big kick out of the first blooms of spring.

All of the bulbs except the aconite are rodent-resistant. I’ll have to sprinkle squirrel repellant atop the aconite. 

Mission accomplished.

I went through all of the steps of re-seeding my back yard yesterday.

It does not look picture perfect. Seems that my compost failed to decompose completely. Rose buds, avocado pits, and eggshells are mixed into the rich soil spilled across the yard. They summon up memories for me. Squirrels licking every last bit of green gold off the patio after I’d cut the avocado into bitesize bits. The bracing taste of eggs over easy after a diet of Egg Beaters. The flowers that my honey still brings me — he’s a romantic.