Adam wrote,
>To those struggling with hardware cloth: Have you tried interplanting your
>bulbs with various Tagetes, euphorbias, etc.?
>There are number of websites that really endorse these remedies.
Because the small, attractive, and (in this climatic region) controllable
Euphorbia myrsinites self-sows freely in an area where I have many bulbs,
this approach has been tried here de facto if not intentionally, and it
does not work. I would not recommend the planting of most Euphorbia
species; some are banned in some US states, and most of them are invasive
in the garden if not also in the (degraded) natural environment. The
so-called mole plant, E. cyparissias (sp?), should never be introduced; it
is famously ineradicable. I'm still trying to get rid of E. griffithii,
which has retreated from me into the root zone of a good rhodendron.
As for Tagetes ("marigolds" to American gardeners), I think they're planted
mostly to deter leaf-eating insects.
Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA