millertime

Incarcerated perennials....ever notice that some plants are routinely devoured by various garden thugs no matter what you do? I have great results from using Liquid Fence to repel deer and rabbits, but sometimes they find a plant too irresistable regardless. Not to mention leaf cutters, grasshoppers, and other pests that evidently cannot smell. I think even the foot traffic from various animals can be detrimental to certain plants, too...especially seedlings. So I put them in jail! Much as I dislike the look, the results are worth it. Any cage will do, like this one from an old freezer-it's covering my 'Fernleaf Peony' that's just a tiny thing so far. Sometimes I'll use a wire corral to protect a small tree from assault until it's big enough to defend itself, like this little japanese maple.

This tradescantia, 'Sweet Kate', is a favorite with hungry plant maulers, even though they ignore all my other varieties of widow's tears (do they know this one cost more?) The other day, she was about to bloom and looked cramped, so I freed her to do her thing....
...the next day I found this.....crap! Back to jail she goes! Even this young green ash tree gets picked on. I want it to be sucessful by the water here, as I read that waterfowl like to eat the seeds. So until it reaches a more substantial size, solitary confinement is in order.

And here I'm using wire to keep out debris, mainly large oak leaves, cuz' they cover the soil surface in the planter and are a pain to remove. This will keep my chipmunks from rooting around and burying stuff too, which usually isn't a real big deal, but the planter area in this trellis just isn't that big.

I think this morning glory will grow up thru this wire just fine...
...added clematis'My Angel', put a daylily and hosta in front to keep the clematis roots cool, and now they can do their thing unscathed! This hard-to-see grass was rescued just in the nick of time! Bunnies ate it down to nothing, but now I see life-*whew*! I forget the name, but it's some sort of variegated Japanese sedge, and now it gets a second chance at life. Sometimes, jail is a very good thing! Right Paris?