Yesterday my ‘sister’ in Toronto and I were discussing how nothing seems to keep squirrels from snacking making a meal of tulips, not hair or vacuum cleaner dust or scolding. Today a friend brought a book she thought I would enjoy (I am!) , Cultivating Delight A Natural History of My Garden by Diane Ackerman which talks about deer deterrents such as hair and loud noises and oily soap but says the solution is – pinwheels! She says the deer avoid them so she has ‘planted’ a pinwheel by each treasured bush and flower. I wonder how many are now whirring merrily in her garden.
If it works for deer, surely it will work for squirrels.
I will alert Olga to the fact and suggest she learn how to fold pinwheels from those foam craft sheets – she has a lot of tulips! – but I think I will wait until the massive amount of snow still covering her garden melts.
I have a pinwheel in my garden; it’s been there for a few years and was put there for colour and movement. There are no tulips near it so I don’t know if it works as a squirrel scare.
However, as I was going back indoors I did notice in the front flower bed this tulip bud and the plant beside it without a tulip bud where I think there might have been a tulip bud yesterday……and we certainly have squirrels. Perhaps the pinwheel is going to be ‘trans-planted’ to the front garden.
It is not possible to go from A to B and back again in a garden, particularly at this time of year: meandering happens.
These are two of the four or more slinkies in the garden. They had to be untwisted from their intertwining in winter winds. They bounce and shimmer and murmur and are a wonderful garden accessory. I like how the different sizes offer different shapes, different movement.
This is the ladybug house. Apparently they access it through the slits under the roof slope; I don’t know if it is well used – or used at all – but I like to think it is.
Bud gazing. Endlessly fascinating. I have seen time lapse photography where the buds open before our eyes and this is quite glorious. But something is more satisfied by just standing and staring at the buds in present time, unfolding at a pace the eye cannot distinguish, feeling quite content to have the chance to capture this moment of the birth.