My garden grows

Gaillardias in my garden

June 27, 2009

The sudden change to hot weather has brought many flowers into bloom. The gaillardias are opening, showing off their bright yellows, oranges and reds. Even the flowers on the plant I moved [late] are opening.  The plants seem hardy enough and like our sandy well-drained soil.  They love the sun too, the more the better. There are more blooms to come.

The  Magic Carpet Spirea that I planted our  first  gardening year  at this location are now covered in deep pink flowers. It seems these plants take a few years to settle in, and now they’re really doing well.

Soon the shasta daisies will open too. They are still held tight inside like tiny curling green fists, but not for long.
And those voles? or moles? I saw two tiny holes in my garden yesterday where some small creature has burrowed down, as well as one spot where the grass has faded to white. I’ve stuck a pop bottle in each hole. The idea behind this is moles have very sensitive hearing and wind blowing in the bottles is too much for them and they leave. I’ve also sprayed a mixture of warm water, dish soap[ unscented] and castor oil around the holes. The lady at the nursery gave me a sheet with ideas on dealing with animals in the garden, and these two ideas were on that paper. This woman knows her gardening stuff.

After all that work digging and growing new grass  from seed, I’d rather not have to do that all again.

Any other  ideas [ no  pesticide  allowed] that we can use to chase them away for good?