Animal pests

meneice@att.net meneice@att.net
Sat, 03 Jan 2009 17:25:49 PST
Deer, especially fawns will bite off anything but green cement.  If they
don't like it, they spit it out.  In Calif. they particularly seem to like
roses, iris (except I. foetidissima), buds of most bulbs, and seem to prefer
perennials and annuals to woody shrubs.  I guess I would too.  

 

I have had pack rats gnaw off fairly sizeable camellia branches (complete
with identifying aluminum tag) and use them for nesting material.  My local
moles sometimes rearrange a bulb bed, but do not eat the bulbs.  Scrub jays
and stellar jays will pull up seedlings and eat them as well as some of the
smaller bulbs as they just emerge from the ground.  Crows are good at that,
too.  Raccoons and skunks also damage seed beds by bull-dozing through them
looking for bugs and grubs.  Then there are the voles and the rabbits.  They
are not too choosy in their diet.

 

Cats you have already heard.  The other domesticated headache is the digging
dog or puppy.  They are trying to help you catch gophers, moles, voles and
other tunneling pests, but they can excavate a whale of a lot of soil,
including adobe clay, in a very short time.

 

Other than that, I haven't had many living pests interfere with my garden,
unless you count aphids, grasshoppers and caterpillars.


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