crocus predators

Brian Whyer brian.whyer@btinternet.com
Sat, 17 Dec 2005 04:55:46 PST
> I have not used this due to too many cats, dogs, children and other
indiscrimately
> oral types but:  add Plaster of Paris powder to peanut butter, place
in affected area
> and hope that none of the above mentioned creatures reach it before
the mice do.

I am using a "rodent bait" that uses a "digestion disrupter" as the
active ingredient. Not sure what that is, but Plaster of Paris would
seem to serve the same purpose. It seemed to be their favourite food,
for about 3 days, now little disappears and the spring traps catch 5 or
so mice a week. As we in the UK are reintroducing Red Kites I am trying
to encourage them by throwing the corpses on the lawn, but although they
disappear I suspect it is the magpies that take them. I find mice eating
the young narcissus growth as much a problem as the crocus bulbs, which
they really only go for in dry surface soil pots. Grit/gravel covered
and damp, they usually ignore, at least until growth shows on the
surface. The open ground is never dry in winter.

My main problem at present is a wild rabbit they sneaks in and mows off
young grasses, sedges, liriope, ipheon, tulips, and I suspect it took
all the Chadd's Ford spiranthes by the way it was decapitated. I am
trying a live trap, but what is more enticing to a rabbit than anything
with a label in a pot? I am trying not to think of what it is going to
do to the spring growth, and can't decide whether to keep it out, or in
and trap it. I have no aversion to lead poisoning, but I am in a small
garden surrounded by houses and need to do it discretely, and silently.

Brian Whyer, Buckinghamshire, England, zone ~8
Frosty nights, but 1st butterfly of "spring" seen yesterday.


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