living around wildlife
Oh, Snap!
My treasured garden magazine has gone out of business!
Which means their website is gone too! Therefore my link is broken.
So much for always having access to that excellent suet bird feed recipe…
Fortunately, David Suzuki’s website has a very similar recipe.
cheers!
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When we first moved to the slopes of Mt. Tolmie, lush licorice fern decorated the mossy rock outcropping in our side yard.
Urban deer wandered the neighbourhood. They spent long afternoons hanging out at the top of our rock, chewing their cud & enjoying the safety of the vantage point.
The licorice fern flourished. The deer seemed uninterested. Typically deer aren’t interested in licorice fern. Typically.
A dozen years pass & their family grows. The large buck has several generations of grandkids browsing the neighbourhood.
Just down the street, beside a busy pathway to the college, licorice ferns still flourish on a similar rock outcrop.
Perhaps the deer don’t linger there?
Looking more carefully, I find a couple fronds that have been munched. Mostly the ferns are full-sized & healthy.
On our chunk of rock – where several more deer now hang out – – the licorice ferns are small, nibbled and struggling.
Coincidence?
Perhaps they’re less ‘deer resistant’ than I think.
A couple years ago, I shifted a few small mats of licorice fern from our rock to other spots around the garden. In places where the deer rarely linger, the ferns grow to their regular size. Hmmmmmm.
Deer aren’t typically interested in licorice fern…
THEN deer can have a negative impact on licorice ferns.
Just because a plant is considered deer resistant, doesn’t mean it won’t suffer when the population of deer intensifies.
That’s my guess.
But really, who knows for sure?
Maybe it’s the raccoons?
Or squirrels?
Rabbits?
Ravens? Cats?
Maybe I’m just blaming deer because I notice them so often.
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Some other ‘resistance’ musings:
It was one morning in September 2006 when I realized fairies are real. Dancing in the autumn chill beneath the birdbath was a flurry of naked ladies.
I found them enchanting…
surely elves & pixies would pop up any minute.
Only a month had passed since we’d purchased our home. I’d done nothing in the yard, besides delivering a few pots from our old home. This magic just ‘happened‘… unprompted.
We were crazy-busy, making the house our own. It would be a long while before much time could be spared for gardens…
yet I knew, then & there, this circle of fairy dancers had to be incorporated into our landscape plans… Somehow.
Given the birdbath & tiny flower bed was awkwardly adrift in a sea of lawn, I needed imagination. It took me a while to figure out what to do with it.
Finally, we moved forward, creating a corner border. Rock edging started at the forsythia & gate (to the right / east)…
encompassed the birdbath, & cherry tree at the end of the driveway (center-right)…
then followed the northern fence line to the rhododendron (far left). (photo: Xmas 2007)
Early on, it felt like a giant, near-empty space that would take forever to turn into a real garden. The new shrubs seemed tiny & lost. The local deer nibbled the Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo). They nearly destroyed the Bottlebrush (Callistemon) with their antlers. Happily, the fairies came back every autumn to dance in the shivery sunshine. The deer gave them peace. 🙂 (photo: August 2009)
Five years in, it was starting to look like something more. The Rhodo (far left) loved the company – growing almost as much as the newer shrubs. Those shrubs were now large enough to stand up against the deer a little better, so I removed their cages. The birds & fairies were enjoying the extra privacy as the garden grew up around the birdbath. (photo: Sept. 2013)
After a dozen years, the party continues. The shrubs have matured into small trees. The border has grown into a mini-woodland. The birdbath almost disappears in the dappled understory! I reckon it’s even more magical than before. And each September, the fairies come to dance. (photo: Sept. 2019)
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Garden Variety Life 