Another One Bites The Dust

Under the cover of deep snow, some damn varmint finished off the second Hesperaloe. Damn varmint! That's two down, six left. The others all survived four degrees. Cold hardiness was my main concern. That is going well. I was not expecting they would end up as tasty morsels for some damn varmint.

I do know that fresh from the nursery, pot grown plants are always more succulent and tasty than a plant that has had time to acclimate and harden off in the environment. Now my hope for the Hesperaloe is that they will get tough, woody and unpalatable.

Except, some damn varmint ate a tiny sprig of a Yucca filamentosa that followed me home a while back. Damn varmint! That has not happened before. All the larger yucca look fine. Was that an accident? Am I having a population explosion of voles? They sure better not develop a taste for yucca roots.

Button needs to get busy.

That is why the poisonous daffodils are the go to bulb of choice. The damn varmints won't eat them. Unfortunately I am a gardener who covets pretty. There are quite a few entirely tasty and edible bulbs planted in the garden. I won't know if anything is missing until spring.

Under the cover of deep snow and in the presence of actual winter conditions, the daffodils that poked up early came to a complete halt in growth. That is one of the good things about daffodils. Up to a point, they can put a halt to things and wait for better days ahead.

The entrance to the garden expansion and nature walk in the forest starts at this end of the slope where the varmints have been dining.

I have pretty much tidied the first section of the forest. The next section is going to be much harder. There are huge rubbish piles left over from a neighbor logging a good number of the giant dead hemlocks. That needs to be burned.

Once they were gone and the sun hit the ground, a forest of vicious blackberry and locust sprang up. It is a tangled thorny mess. Only persistence will get rid of the blackberry. I have to burn up the rubbish to access that part of the slope before persistence can even be attempted.

Another day.

I did get one winter project completed this year and winter isn't over yet.

The snow is gone though.