While in my greenhouse today, a couple of visitors came under the door. Yes, two garden snakes. I got them out by flicking them with a wooden stake I had in the greenhouse to stir fertilizer into the water barrel. I shooed them on their way because my hubby says to never kill a snake. Well about 5 minutes later, here came two more and different ones under the door. Now, I'm getting a little upset about this problem. First of all, I can't plug up the area under the door. My greenhouse just sits on soil with cedar mulch for the floor. I still have one snake in the greenhouse, much to my dismay. You see, I hate snakes. Am scared to death of them. What can I do to get these beasts out of there and convince them it isn't the place to come back to? I'm afraid I would have heart failure if one of them crawled over my foot. Have goose bumps just writing about this.
Shirley
Need Help Badly.....
have you tried playing a radio? it might help, and after reading that 'do you talk to your plants' thread, it might help the plants too. wish I could help more, it was just the only thing that came to mind.
Gosh Brugie I think I would have the same reaction as you!! I suppose they are looking for a warm and cosy place or has your weather warmed up now!! I'm not very well clued up on the antics of snakes and don't know if anything would frighten them away. I was curious and did a search and came up with this site and have bookmarked it too because we have copperheads here and touch wood I haven't seen one yet!!
http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/er/publications/living.htm
Thanks you guys for the help and MVR for your url you sent me too. I guess I might give the mothballs a try, but my greenhouse won't smell very pretty then, will it? Am going to check on repellent when I go to the local greenhouse again too. Thanks again.
I thought that link said there was no repellent for snakes!!
I think there are repellents, but very possible they don't work. In fact, someplace I visited in the last month or so had snake and squirrel repellent, I believe. Anyway, our greenhouse didn't have anything, but two of those little squirmers are gonners now anyway. Two more to go and then I suppose the cousins will start dropping in for a visit.
Gosh I hope you don't have any more 'visitors'. Could be they are getting ready to mate and trying to find a cosy place to do it :-)
Louisa, I'm sure that is exactly what was going on. They had a lot of speed behind them and were running neck and neck. Bet they wondered what they ran into when they saw me and the stick coming at them. :-)
How about trimming something with thorns and placing in front of the door?? if I were a snake I wouldn't want to travel over anything with thornes.
Brugie I can picture it quite well!! Bet they were far more frightened than you were :-) As long as I know that they are of the harmless variety I guess I could handle it and they are very good friends to the gardener too!! I just don't want to see a copperhead is all.
I just don't want to be resting on my chair in the greenhouse and have one crawl across my foot. I'd lose it, for sure.
Well, no of course not - I would also freak out!!!
My father used to keep a large rope accross the garage door to keep snakes out. It was one of the old kind that felt kind of bristly. Don't know if it works, but they never had a snake in there. Good luck.
Hey thanks, I'll try the rope thing. Can't hurt to try, and if it works, will be great. At least I wouldn't have to keep watching my feet. :-)
I've heard of the bristly hemp rope cure too. And when I grew up the farmers loved having a "resident" black snake in their barn...kept down the rodent popluation. Louisa, I think you need to get you a Black Snake...as they tell me that they are the only snake that will take on a Copperhead. We had many Copperheads on our place in WV...but I'm like Lewis Grizzard in his book....ALL snakes are "Copperheaded Water Rattlers"! LOL Jo