As beautiful and graceful as she is, if this critter continues to eat my flowers, she will adorn my office wall. This week, I’ve watched her come through the yard. She ate leaves from a mulberry tree. The next day, I saw a pair of them walk through. Since they saw me both times, they skittered off into the wetland. I never saw them eat any flowers. The next day, I began to notice deer tracks all about the yard, and many of my plants showed signs of deer damage. Allot of mysterious things began to make sense, like a bunch of lobelia plants without buds, Canna Lillie’s with tops missing, and Asiatic Lillie’s with stems clipped.
A week ago, my friend Tom called me to come over and dig some hosta plants from his yard. He helped me dig out several varieties. I drove home, split them and planted them around the yard. The plant in this photo is under the squirrel bungee. Notice how neatly the leaves are clipped from the stems. Next to this one is a different variety that was tasted, and pulled by the roots from the ground. Evidently, deer do not like the taste of bright green hosta leaves. They love the dark green best. All around the yard, wherever I planted the dark green variety the leaves were snipped from the stems.
Last evening, as I watered the flowers, I noticed the Stella Dora Lilly was different. Earlier in the week the plants were loaded with buds. I looked forward to the color splash. Now, all the buds are gone, and the stems stick up like toothpicks. It’s been so cold this spring that they were late blooming. Well, they will really be late now. I hope the critter liked ‘em.
Filed under: Garden, Gardening, Uncategorized, Warm and Fuzzy Tagged: | Asiatic Lily, Bambi, Corn Cob, Critter, Doe, Hosta, Lobelia, Mulberry, Riddle, Squirrel Bungee, Stella Dora Lilly, White Tail Deer
