Peace in our time

I'll be presenting a free Green Newton lecture on Beautiful Sustainable Gardens at the Newton Free Library next Monday June 10 at 7:00 p.m. See you there!

A delightful group of gardeners came to my house this past weekend for the second of two classes on sustainable gardening sponsored by Newton Community Education. One thing on our minds was the difficulty of protecting plants from wildlife, particularly squirrels.

Spring is a lean time for squirrels

    I’m certainly coping with that challenge this spring. The wet weather has been great for the garden. Every plant seems to be expanding, and cool days keep flowers looking fresh. 

Meadow rue with a background of slender deutzia

Squirrels are busy finding food in the yard. I enjoy watching them—and I’ve got a couple of new strategies for protecting my young seedlings from their depredations.

    I need effective barriers. I was puzzled by an Amazon customer review claiming that 2-foot tall modular fence panels keep squirrels out of her vegetable bed. Either squirrels in Chicago are much less agile than they are here, or hers are very easily spooked.

    Squirrels have a habit of digging where I’ve sown seeds or planted starts from the garden center. In the past, I’ve covered planting areas with wire fencing.

Wire fencing might keep squirrels from digging

Row cover fabric pinned on top lets light and water through and should keep squirrels out. The problem with this method is that I can’t see what’s happening underneath the row cover. 

Row cover: I can't see what's underneath

Sometimes I’ve lifted the fabric a few weeks later and found that insects or larger animals have gotten underneath without my knowing it. I’ve been watering absent or dead seedlings.

    A new tip comes from Ellen Sampson, a reader of Fine Gardening who reuses black plastic carryout flats from nurseries, inverting them over her seed rows or tiny seedlings and pinning them down. I’m trying this for lettuce seedlings I started in the house and transplanted to the garden. Another flat over two young basil seedlings should allow them to root themselves securely enough to survive squirrel excavations in nearby soil. The seedling are partially shaded by the grid that makes up the bottom of each flat. That could actually be a benefit in the first week or so while they’re adjusting to the shock of transplantation.

Basil seedlings under a flat

    For my containers, I gamble on mulch, which seems to be less interesting to curious squirrels than soft, uncovered potting mix or soil. 

Will mulch deter digging?

A native meadowsweet (Spiraea alba) I bought came with a disc of fiber matting covering the soil surface. I repurposed that to protect a tomato seedling I have high hopes for in a pot on the deck. The fiber barrier supplements window screening cut to size to guard the soil surface. 

Trying everything to coddle a young tomato vine

If the matting keeps squirrels out, I could open up fiber pots that contained herbs and vegetable seedlings to keep squirrels from excavating some other young plants in containers. 

Fiber pots could make a useful barrier

    Last week I watched a squirrel climb over the pots on the deck, investigating each one before jumping down. He didn’t do any digging. It’s small compromises like this that make our relationship work. Squirrels can have the acorns and spruce cones. I hope they’ll leave the tomatoes for us. 

No need to dig for food, plenty of cones available

Wall! What is it good for?

One of the many reasons that a border wall is a terrible idea: it’s a design for environmental disaster. Living in the Northeast, we picture the Mexican border territory as a barren desert populated with a few cacti and coyotes. That’s not true at all. The southern border lies in a transition zone from temperate to tropical habitat. In Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, the border runs through sky islands, mountainous areas surrounded by desert.

 Catalina Mountains near Tucson-photo Brambleshire

 Protected by a chain of wildlife refuges, this varied geography makes a home for an unusually rich mix of species. The border region is one of the most biodiverse areas in North America and hosts more than 180 threatened and endangered species. 

    Sections of wall already constructed have caused serious trouble. 

Border fence restricts movement of wildlife

Dividing animal populations that roam between the US and Mexico creates smaller groups with less genetic diversity, leading to extinction. The wall cuts off water access during the dry season. As climate change progresses, the barrier hampers animals’ ability to adapt by choosing the best locations at each time of year. Even low-flying birds, such as pygmy owls, can’t fly high enough to make it over the wall. 

    The 2005 REAL ID Act permits the federal government to forge ahead on wall construction in the name of national security, ignoring existing laws, such as requirements for environmental impact studies. Crews with chainsaws appeared at the National Butterfly Center, a private sanctuary a few miles north of the border, without warning and tore out carefully chosen plantings fostered over many years. 

Fiery Skipper at National Butterfly Center-photo Bettina Arigoni

These losses will be hard to recover, even if sanity does return to our government. Meanwhile, the 24 million dollars it costs to build a mile of wall could fully fund population recovery of endangered ocelots, jaguars and gray wolves that depend on borderland refuges.

Endangered ocelots need to range freely between the US and Mexico-photo Ana Cotta

    The height of Trump’s fantasy wall varies. It’s been as high as 55 feet. In my town, we don’t have any 18-, 30-, or 55-foot walls or fences. The usual fence is 5 feet tall. My yard is surrounded by wooden fencing. 

This fence looked best when it was new and fresh in 1997

When a small dog came to visit, I noticed that in a lot of places, the fence doesn’t reach the ground, making it easy to slip under. Cats and raccoons regularly climb over the top, and squirrels hop across on overhanging branches. Even so, I wish I hadn’t opted for solid fences. Now I prefer the wood-framed fences filled in with lattice or widely spaced wire that I see in a few places in the neighborhood. 

A more open fencing option

This system creates a formal barrier, but it doesn’t keep migrating plants or animals out. It also looks better. The best thing about my fences is the support they provide for clematis vines.

Grape and clematis vines twining up the driveway fence

    Can’t we find a more sensible way to maintain our borders? As California Congressman Ted Lieu said, a wall is first century technology. It’ll kill endangered animals and ruin pristine wildlife refuges, but it certainly won’t keep out refugees who have nowhere else to go.

Monument to people who've died trying to cross into the US © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

The little squirrels that could

I'll be selling gardeners' gift baskets at the farmer's market in West Newton, MA 10-2 on June 23, June 30, and every other Saturday thereafter until October 6. Stop by and say hello if you're in the neighborhood! The market is on Elm Street between Washington Street and Webster Street. 
 
Baby needs acorns—that seems to be the imperative for squirrels in my yard at this time of year. Local squirrels are in high gear, digging everywhere. 

Squirrels are persistent in their search for food. They've got all day.

I wake in the morning to find holes dug every six inches in the wood chip paths. There are few edible seeds or nuts around at this season. Squirrels are digging for food wherever soil is loose.

Wood chip paths make for easy digging

    Whatever I plant in the ground is in danger of being thrown back out by foraging squirrels. This year’s plan to grow vegetables and berries in containers on the deck is in serious jeopardy unless I can keep squirrels out of the pots until the plants are firmly rooted.

      Checking Google, I learn that other people are having the same problem. 

Can you see where squirrels dug a hole in the bottom right corner of this pot?

Writers promoting “natural” gardening recommend non-toxic repellents: human hair or dog hair, cayenne pepper, or bone meal spread on the soil surface. Folk remedies like these get passed on from gardener to gardener, but I’ve never found they had much effect on wildlife.

    Instead, I’m opting for mechanical barriers. One recommendation that recurred in my Internet search was to lay down chicken wire or wire mesh fencing and plant through it. Cutting a hole with wire clippers every time you plant a seedling sounds to me like a recipe for frustration and laceration. 

    I prefer to cover rows of seeds with row cover, a spun-bonded synthetic textile. I keep the fabric off the ground with rectangles of wire fencing with 2-inch openings. These are held down with small stakes. 

Peas under row cover

 I take the row cover off when the seeds sprout. I can remove the fencing when the seedlings have several leaves or let it remain to deter digging all summer. 

    I have to admit that this approach adds extra time and work to the job of starting the vegetable garden in spring. It does increase the chance that squirrels will leave the seedlings in peace.

    Protecting young plants in pots is even more complicated. This spring I’ve potted strawberry plants, a blueberry bush, a patio tomato, a bush cucumber, and two eggplant seedlings. I’ve planted radish and lettuce seeds in shallow containers. The question is how to keep these plants safe, short of standing guard all day. Past experience warns that they have little chance of surviving or producing without a barrier to keep squirrels out.

    I covered the little blueberry bush with a chicken wire cloche I bought from Gardeners Supply. 

Chicken wire cloche: adorable but pricey

Glass cloches were originally invented as mini-greenhouses, providing a warm, moist environment to encourage individual plants to grow. This one is just a barrier to keep marauders out. It’s not cheap at $25 plus shipping, otherwise I’d purchase a fleet of them. 
   
    After squirrels started digging in the other containers, I covered the pots with window screen or wire mesh or laid cut pieces of these around the plants on the soil surface, holding them down with small stakes or tomato cages. Still the squirrels find ways around my barriers. They never give up!

A squirrel found a way past the protective screening and threw mulch out of this tomato's pot

Woman versus squirrel

Wildlife—can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. This month it’s squirrels. I’ve been driven to elaborate measures to keep them from digging up my young seedlings.

Squirrel at work--photo by pelican

     A fair percentage of the seeds I planted indoors this spring succeeded in growing into little plants around four inches tall. I hardened them off, moving them outdoors for lengthening periods over a couple of weeks to make sure they were ready for this season’s wildly oscillating temperatures. 

Toughening up to live outdoors

Then there were delays during days of heavy rain that kept me out of the garden for fear of trampling the soil into concrete.

    In the last three weeks I used whatever dry days there were for planting the seedlings out. Most were headed for the fenced, rabbit-proof vegetable plot.

The vegetable garden fence reaches 12 inches underground to keep rabbits out

Basil and dill seedlings landed in a corner dedicated to herbs. Nearby I also planted seeds of peas, cucumbers, and beans directly in the ground.

     Opposite the herbs is a section that stays dry and partially shaded because of a neighbor’s tall red oak. The tree’s branches extend above the vegetable plot, and its roots efficiently draw up whatever irrigation I provide. This area can’t sustain vegetables, so it has become an insectary garden offering food and shelter for native insects.

      This month I added some seedlings of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and cockscomb (Celosia species) to it and edged the path that bisects the vegetable bed with sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima).

Sweet alyssum attracts pollinators and has a honey scent

     Near the insectary bed, I’m hoping to produce flowers for cutting. In that section I planted the zinnias, bachelor’s buttons, and cosmos I started indoors with hopes of enjoying summer bouquets. Some spider flower (Cleome hassleriana) that had popped up in the homemade potting mix came along too. The flowers of these easy annuals are popular with pollinators.

Exuberant zinnias at Locust Grove in Poughkeepsie, NY

     So far the sustainable-enough approach was working. I’d managed to procure most of the annuals I wanted without resorting to seeds or plants treated with neonicotinoid insecticides. I’d gotten the young plants safely into the garden. That’s when squirrels became a menace. 

     When I dig, squirrels follow after me, digging in the same spot and throwing the young seedlings I’ve planted out of the ground. If I don’t notice and replant them, the exposed roots dry up and the little plants die. Squirrels don’t seem to want to eat the seedlings (except sunflowers, which must have delicious sprouts). Maybe they suspect I’ve buried nuts. Whatever the reason for this behavior, it’s very frustrating.

     To foil this sabotage, wherever I dug in the vegetable garden, I had to cover the loosened soil with wire fencing and then anchor row cover fabric on top of it. 

Row cover fabric lets water and light through and keeps squirrels out

That gave the vegetable seeds and the young seedlings a chance to take root. Yesterday, after the row cover had been in place for two weeks, I lifted it off. I left the fencing in place.

Lettuce and greens growing through the wire fencing

 I covered the bare soil with leaf mulch. Here’s hoping I’ve outsmarted the squirrels, and they’ll dig somewhere else.

 Are these pea plants old enough to be squirrel-proof?

Live and let live

Ah, winter again. 

Not long until the winter solstice

Footprints in this weekend’s snow reveal that even in winter there’s a lot going on in my yard that I don’t see. 

Squirrel prints, or something bigger?

I thought of this when I read Steve Aitken’s description of a painful experience in this month’s Fine Gardening (“I believe in a critter-proof garden.”) His first foray into growing lilies from bulbs ended when his flower buds became a meal for foraging deer: “. . . all that greeted me were some newly topless stems. And hoof prints.”

     I’ve had my unhappy wildlife interactions too, but not with anything bigger than a raccoon. Reading the FG piece, I realized that my experience with wildlife in the garden is pretty sheltered. If I lived a few miles west in Boston’s more woodsy exurbs, I’d be cursing at deer too. I might have bears eating birdseed from my feeders and coyotes howling in my backyard.

Luckily my lilies are safe from deer

    Back here in the first ring of suburbs, our yard hosts mobs of sparrows, sometimes flocks of starlings, and a coterie of small native birds that frequent the feeders. Turkeys rarely penetrate the fenced yard, and we’ve never seen a coyote on our third-of-an-acre property. 

     Nights bustle with mammal activity as opossums, skunks, voles and raccoons lead their lives nearby but mostly unobserved.  In daylight, rabbits have become an everyday sight in my yard in the warm months, and I occasionally glimpse chipmunks. Squirrels are so common that we ignore their acrobatic prowess.

If squirrels were rare, their abilities would amaze us

    In the city center rats, pigeons, squirrels, and European sparrows live as “human commensals,” species that benefit from a relationship with humans without affecting us directly. In my suburban town, a lot of animals have adapted to living near humans, but I wouldn’t say that they benefit. They’ve adjusted to our taking over their space, but they often pay a high price for proximity.

    For example, a recent sunrise revealed a dead opossum in the middle of a busy nearby street. Possums seem to be particularly ill-equipped for dodging cars, and in fact much of their mortality is caused by human activity. This one probably was trying to get ready for winter and thought she could cross that open space under cover of darkness (Here’s a link to some fascinating opossum information).

Opossum mother and babies

     
     So far I’ve had the luxury of enjoying animal sightings, after adjusting my gardening expectations. I learned long ago not to try to grow sweet corn, because raccoons were much better than me at sensing when the ears ripened. If I plant tulips, I know there’s a good chance squirrels will bite off the flowers as they open. I accept that I won’t harvest blueberries from my bushes, because birds will get there first. 

    But I’m not primarily a food gardener, and I can live without flowers that are too delicious for wildlife to pass up. Gardeners farther from the city may be trying to scare animals away or fence them out. Here in the suburbs, I try to offer a garden where we can all get along.

Dear readers, I'm going to take a break next week. Best wishes for happy and peaceful holidays. See you in 2017.