
It's become clear to me through posts and PMs that there are some gardeners here just waiting for the chance to discuss gardening!
So, I was thinking... how do you use gardening, or how does it affect you if you need a break, need some respite, need to relax, need inspiration....how do you use it as a therapy tool in caregiving?
What are your activities: Do you go out and pull weeds, read a magazine, design new beds? Look through garden catalogues? Go to garden stores?
And what interests have you added to your gardening? Visit estate or garden displays? Do you go to garden shows?
Does anyone design and plant Knot Gardens? Raised bed planters? Assistive gardens? Pollinator gardens (and have you thought of ways to help the bees and butterflies?)
Are your gardens primarily for pleasure or food, or a mix of both? Do you grow plants for medicinal purposes? Which ones, how do you harvest and process them? Any suggestions?
Do you grow plants that can be used in crafts, such as grapevines for wreaths and lavender for lavender wands? Do you make herbal products such as creams, lotions, chapstick?
What else can you share about gardening and the means in which it nurtures your soul?
I love the blast of color this time of year with my camellias. They are a beautiful shade of pink.
My Japanese magnolia tree is a really nice shade of deep purple. The blooms don’t last very long. I wish the blooming season was a bit longer with my tree but it is so pretty when it blooms! My tree is full of buds right now. I am excited waiting for it to bloom.
I look forward to the burst of color every year.
Know what you mean. Our poor plants don’t know what season it is anymore!
Our weather is crazy! One day it feels like summer, the next day, chilly.
In New Orleans we tell people if you don’t like the weather, then stick around for 20 minutes and it will change! Hahaha
I believe there is a significant change because I remember as a child my mom would pack up winter clothes when it was cool, put out summer attire. Then at the end of summer, she would pack up our summer clothes and take out the winter clothes.
No more! Now we have both seasons all year long!
Hey, I am in the south so our weather is very screwy. We barely have a spring season. We have no fall foliage, a brief winter and a long, hot humid summer!
Oh, we get a fair amount of rainfall here and let’s not speak about our hurricane season this year or I will get depressed!
Did you click "SAVE?"
Boo hoo, it won’t go through! What am I doing wrong?
My camellias are blooming their hearts out! They are so pretty.
My Japanese magnolia tree will be blooming soon. It is full of buds! I love that tree. It’s about 30 years old and blooms so beautifully every year!
I'll also add it to a flap screen over the hole so I can tell if they're still getting in.
Shredded garlic and coffee grounds might be an extra treat for them. I might spread them in the gutter near the holes. I'll just have to remember to explain to the buyer when I sell the house why there's garlic in the gutters.
Thanks for helping with this challenging problem.
White pepper, Cayenne, garlic, coffee grounds-all disliked by squirrels.
Squirrels can be one of the trickiest garden pests to deal with. They chomp on flower bulbs and other leaves, dig up your favorite plants, and otherwise love to wreck your garden. Protect it by grating some Irish Spring soap around your plants. Squirrels can't stand the smell of it and will stay away.
sleet, ice, and icebergs. Yeah, but, you are talking about plants, I see! What better to discuss on the 'gardening as therapy' thread! It took me awhile as I was just waking up from a nap, and outside was sunshine. It was 80 degrees, and hard to wake up!
Snowdrops are not to be confused with Snowflakes - The Snowflake is a much taller growing bulb which normally has more than one flower per stem. Snowflake petals are even, each with a green spots on the end, whereas Snowdrops have helicopter-like propellers that are green only on the inner petals.
Snow
Snow is something that Cwillie shovels in winter. Lol.
Squirrels
I know that I said I was going to be feeding the squirrels. But then a few big crows came by, and took the peanuts. Nevermore! 🦃
Please don't tell NHWM or I will have to hear more 'Quoth the Raven' stories, and I was really nervous the next day, when about 20 crows perched up high in the trees, watching me, waiting for peanuts!
Lol. 🐿🐿🐿
Oh well, at least I'm not already heavy into winter like some folks here are.
Speaking of squirrels, I left the last partially filled paper leaf bag by my door because wind blown leaves tend to collect there and this morning I found a big hole chewed into the side of the bag. A new place to hide a nut? 😖😠
I'm not sure what to think of this. Perhaps it was a neat freak squirrel and wanted to keep its feet clean? It definitely knew its destination; it was as if it was on a trip.
Oh my gosh! I saw The Birds at a drive in movie with my parents and brothers as a young child. Fabulous movie but I had nightmares afterwards!
I absolutely love Hitchcock films.
Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" horrors still running through my mind.
I know someone who could hook up their exhaust to their garage and get rid of Possums, Racoons, and then close their garage door to keep them out......
An inexpensive pest control, DIY.
The ground squirrels are not fed if they come for food, and 2-3 of them fight.
Until I do not have a choice, I will feed the entertaining little critters. I was going to use a different word, lol.
(Oh, and there's a branch that recently fell just a couple of feet over onto the neighbour's property, I was going to be a good neighbour and take care of it but now... nah)
Against my better judgment. I am going to go ahead and feed the squirrels this winter. I used to feed "Ratatouille", but got a cat. Could not do both.
It is rare that a senior knows just when to slow down.
And the temptation to 'do it anyway' is great.
It has been a challenge to accept my own limitations,
and my that of my husband's.
I hired a squirrel catcher to remove them; his traps didn't catch the kind that we thought were in the house, but I think the ones he caught were actually the culprits. The problem then was that I couldn't get a contractor to repair the fascia, and it was a ladder job which I didn't want to tackle. So now they're back.
Has anyone had similar problems, and if so, how did you eventually get them out of the house? I do have plans based on what's worked so far: painters' tape deters them; that's kept them out of other places they've chewed up. I may use it on the exterior holes, and add some hand sanitizers/handiwipes as I've found that also deters them.
I do have to make sure they're out of the house though before I seal them in. The critter catcher I hired used a trap, but I'd have to maneuver and set it up while on a ladder, which I'm not willing to do. I'm no longer comfortable working on ladders, especially on the outside when the ladder will be sitting on pavement.
One of our squirrels regularly comes off the deck into our house for his nuts if we don't deliver on time. We call him Larry. After my cousin who's a little "squirrely."