they are sort of a creepy neat plant. lol JITP that is.
tree peony
Love them...we used to have some and also some trillium.
Could not locate the picture of the trillium with the white flower. These are the toadshades. They are very hardy, grow in both sun and shade, are early bloomers and don't seem to be invasive in my yard. I'm so excited to see them as they are one of the first to come up and are very interesting in their sprouting.
Cathy, what is a toadshade? I wanted to look it up to see what zones it would grown in. thanks
Mary
I am just sick. I noticed that my crabapple tree had been completely girdled by the mice. when I spoke with my daughter she said that the tree would die. There is no way for nutrients to go down the trunk to the roots. that means that all three of my tree peonies will die as they are all thoroughly girdled. The only possibility is that they will send up new shoots. So now I wait another three or four years for buds, assuming that the mice don't strike again. My heart is absolutely broken. I just knew that this year the flowers would be gorgeous and many. What I have is a yard full of mice sh--.
It's another trillium: http://davesgarden.com/sitewidesearch.php?q=toadshade
I know I've another photo of the white trillium; it'll just take a while to find it.
Marcia
Sorry, we cross-posted. That is so terrible. I'm always angry when my prince puts out bait for the rodents because it creeps me out to have poison around. I tend to forget how much damage they can do.
Is there anything you can do to protect the area they have chewed so that it can heal?
My understanding after googling about it is that there is something called 'bridging' that might work but it takes a horticulturist to do it and the results are iffy. I sent a note to Scott Reath in Michigan and asked him what his prognosis is. They might send up shoots, but the thought of waiting another number of years for flowers is almost enough to make me just dig the up. At least they won't be food for mice another year. Of course that isn't the answer as I assume they will continue to eat what is in my garden til it is all gone. If they can kill a tree (trunk was about 5" thick), they can kill all the bushes easily. chewed on my China Rose and even some rose bushes. For some reason didnt' touch my rhodys. Not sure what I will find when my helleborus melt out. On the other hand they didn't eat my hardy carnation which is evergreen. and it wasn't because it was covered with a large flower planter because one of the azaleas was totally covered with a pot; I had to kick it hard just to get it out of the ice and snow and they got that one totally.
Oh, also thank you for the information on the toadshade.
This is the other Trillium, not white but red. It is not yet up this year, but I expect with warm weather lots of things (including weeds) will appear. Trillium is pretty sturdy but does not spread very quickly.
I am sooo sorry about your crabapple & your tree peonies. What a devastating prognosis. I feel your pain!
Yes, losing plants is hard.
mstella, the news about the rhodent damage is so sad. Have you considered getting a dog or cat to reduce their population? I used to have an outside "barn" cat that even killed voles, running along the length of their holes to track them, her tail constantly twitching. My dog is of more limited help, but sometimes I've seen him batting his paws at the mice in our yard and he controls the woodchucks raccoons and skunk. The downside was when we put in a fence for him, it did kill some tree roots.
I have long wanted a cat. I had one when I married but my husband became allergic a few years later. We talked of it but I can't ask him to take pills or whatever just so I can have a cat. So I guess it's poison bait and traps. Don't like that as we have a couple of friendly squirrels that don't damage anything and I would hate to hurt them. Don't know if they eat mouse bate. Carol, my neighbor, has been feeding Pansy the squirrel along with birds for several years. She "Pansy" uses my fence as her super highway to get to Carol's feeders.
I just keep hoping that there will be a miracle and at least my tree peonies will somehow survive. I am going to call the extension service for advice. I did write to one seller but no response.
For the past 2 years my prince has been putting out bait when we see holes in our yard. It does not seem to bother the squirrels, birds or chipmunks. It seems to control the moles and voles. Our biggest animal problems are deer and rabbits, so I've already started spraying the stuff to make our plants a less appetizing dinner. I can see they have feasted on our tulips.
One of the larger problems of putting out bait is that the wafrin passes on to anything that eats the rodent. Apparently there is a very strong concentrated bait that can be passed on and is believed to damage hawks and owls in some areas. This was on our news last winter and if I can find a link I will post again.
I wouldn't want to do that. I will do some research on the type of bait I am using. I can set traps but that isn't very efficient. But I will if I have to.
Okay, forgive my lack of experience. I was outside raking a little while ago in a small garden along the front sidewalk. It's an area under a large oak tree with some peony plants and a number of irises, looking kind of messy. While I'm raking, out jumps this little thing, kind of hops onto the sidewalk and goes away. I continue to rake, and out pops another, and this one tries to climb the oak tree, and falls a bit backwards. I called my prince out to show him where these things came from, and out pops another. I'm thinking they're very young rabbits due to the way they're hopping. I'm guessing that where there are 3 there are more.
I thought deer had dinner on my tulips. These don't look like baby deer.
omg, they are soooo adorable. I KNOW. They eat stuff just like my less than adorable meeces, but still....so cute. Little babies....Thumperlettes.....:)
OMG how cute.......just in time for Easter,they're so precious ! please don't kill them.
We don't intend to kill them. I think they probably do protect from other pests. I will, however, continue to run around with my bad-tasting spray in an effort to keep them off my lilies. I have the feeling they were responsible for killing my red twig dogwood in that same garden. It was dead when we dug it out.
I tend to be more afraid of the 4-legged guys in the yard than they are of me. It seems I saw a larger rabbit in the yard just last week.
lol. Reminds me of the killer rabbits in Monty Python's Flying Circus. And I can really see those little adorables doing in a red-twig dogwood. That is about the only thing my %^%$$#@%&** meeces didn't much on. they even sat on my bloodstone armeria and Elijah Blue grass and trimmed it. Of course, it won't hurt them. The plants that is.
We have problems with both rabbits & squirrels. We have used live traps with a great deal of success. We relocate them to my husbands hunting areas.
Squirrels and chipmunks run rampant here.. The squirrels dig everything up and the chipmunks eat bulbs. Haven't had to deal with rabbits yet, thank goodness..
So do they chew on your tree peonies and other bushes? How do you protect them? One of my azaleas was under a POT no less. Not just a cage with 4x4" squares. They had to have dug down under the pot to get at the bush.
No, they have not chewed on my tree peonies or any other bushes.. Stella, your mouse problem sounds awful.. My Jack Russell terrier never met a mouse she didn't like - she swears they taste just like chicken nuggets..LOL
Mouse, meet you doom..
I would love to babysit your dog for the summer. He would be sooooo fat on meeces! lol
We used life traps and my husband caught 49 squirrels 2 summers ago and released them far away in the wild.He missed one and she/he is still around.
In the past three days we have trapped 2 squirrels & an enormous possum.
We're real cowards so we use giant mouse traps that can hold a whole family of live mice. Then we go to the conservation land and set them free by the river. We googled to find a site that sold them.
My preference is not to kill little critters also. Especially squirrels. My husband will shoot them on sight as they do terrible damage if you get an infestation. We keep mesh around our house to keep them out of the attic and such. But mice....that might be a different story. Too many of far to damaging to what is most important to me -- my garden. I would napalm my back yard to be rid of them if it wouldn't kill my plants. Found a knautia stem yesterday that was pencil thin at the bottom and about 1/2" thick further up. They had just chewed it around the bottom. Don't know if it will live. I think so. Just put three of them in last year.
I say "live and let live" when it comes to squirrels and chipmunks.. I have never had an infestation bad enough to warrant the use of live traps. We have lots of hawks in our neighborhood that naturally control the population. If a mouse chewed the bottom of my prized plants, it would be a declaration of war..lol
They are predicting storms for us again this evening.. I hope no more trees are blown over by this round.
RrrrrGrrrr, hope you fair better this time than last time. Or, more firewood that I guess, being in Georgia, you don't use much of. lol. My Dad lived in Paris, Tn and used a wood burning stove for many years until age got the best of him and he put in central air (heat and air conditioning.)
awww, I have been to Paris, TN. I don't have problems with rodents but more so with rabbits :(
Teresa in KY
I had a landscaper coming in at night and digging up my plants and remulching the area, took a bit to cue in, cops caught him. He did more damage then any four legged varmit!
Do you think he was digging them up to resell them?
that is amazing! And makes no sense. How much can the idiot dig up to landscape someone's yard. And then remulches to cover his tracks. Should be shot. At the very least extremely publicly humiliated.
Happy Easter everyone. Dem, some people have no conscience. There are some really desparate people in the world. How many of your plants did he steal, and will he be forced to replace them?
Yes, he was reselling, was an actual landscaper. Dirty man! Last night someone took one of my pots that are filled with pansies, just a spray painted pot that I had, and dumped it in ,the middle of the road, then put the pot in the middle of my walkway so I would see it first thing. neighborhood is changing.......