Mid-Atlantic Gardening: Living with Wildlife.., 1 by ldy_gardenermd

ldy_gardenermd wrote:
Ok so follow me on my story here for a second lol.. I got a bee in my bonnet to refresh my front porch. I decided that I have this big huge space and I want to make better use of it. The picture is the before. Anywho, I set out yesterday in taking everything off the porch and giving it a good cleaning. I scrubbed the rails, the door, took out the screens and cleaned them, scrubbed the window frames, the light fixtures and the porch swing. The amount of bird droppings and spider droppings was crazy. Then I got out the pressure washer and washed the cedar decking down. Step one complete.

In order to save a little money I decided to recycle (albeit temporary because I don't really like them for sitting) some chairs that we had gotten to go with a beautiful cedar table Randy made. (It used to sit in our gazebo but when we got rid of the deck we took that down and it's waiting to be rebuilt over by the pond at which time I think the table and chairs will be reunited.) So the chairs are like some super hardwood they are ok for sitting at the table and eating, but not the comfy kind you want to sit in for any length of time.(Which I'm envisioning something comfy to sit in and watch the pollinator garden and maybe read a good book, while sipping a glass of lemonade) Well two were on the coffee deck (that is the little deck outside of the all season room that we built and have coffee and cocktails on sometimes) and the other two by the pond. All four were kinda gross (the ones from the pond more so) so I got out the Murphy's oil soap (remember that stuff lol) and scrubbed them down really good. The two that had been over by the pond had been gnawed on pretty good, but the two that had been on the coffee deck were in fine shape.

They are on the porch for now, however I'm going shopping today for some odds and ends to add out there and I was looking at furniture online at some of the places I'm going. They have some really nice stuff out there, some sets that I would love to have on the porch and then there's some stuff that I'd love to have by the pond, but what in the world do you do to keep the wildlife from destroying it? I mean it's bad enough that something chewed the wood, but I can't imagine what would happen to chairs with cushions on them by the pond. We are on our second hammock because something ate the rope on the first one! So for any of you that have outdoor seating areas are you only using metal with no cushions? How can you stop the chewing and destruction? (if you can) Obviously this isn't an issue in more suburban areas, or is it??? Please help lol!!!