Fothergilla “Legends of the Small” took a long time to change colors, but they’re really eye catching and holding strong. These have neat spring flowers, are slow growing (at least in the part shade everywhere I’ve planted them), small and the deer ignore them. Nothing special in summer, but there’s tons of pretty stuff around them for that job. I’ve planted these at 3 family/friends properties with heavy deer pressure, and they’re all doing well.
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Prarie moon stocked their bare roots today. Spent way too much lol
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Fun! What did you get?
Native plant carnage. 
I just discovered voles tore through my street garden eating all but two liatris bulbs (of various species), smooth aster (half a plant remaining), oenothera fruitcose (all gone!) and some others.
A smooth aster and liatris pilosa we noticed where at an odd angle- because they were floating in leaves with gaping holes below. Tunnels everywhere. Set out many traps. Furious. Have been catching mice every few days in my backyard, but here I thought the front was safe. I can’t get off this tiny property fast enough. I swear this kind of concentrated damage is a product of too much in a tiny space that isn’t even close to enough to house predators.
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the little bastards did that to my j. artichoke 3 years ago. they left pieces in there and i wound up with more plants in the bed than before. once they find a source of food they are relentless. they killed 5 of 8 of my neighbors blueberry bushes the same winter. they havent been back since both of us put out bait stations around the property under the snow in winter.
I’m glad they left pieces to regrow and learned from the traps!! My voles are clearly less intelligent. We have been trapping/killing both them and the mice since mid summer. There was a lot of fox activity in my front yard the last few days…I suspect this only just happened. Unfortunate that the fox is only good for making a mess. If only my neighbors/nearly everyone in the neighborhood had more than just turf, maybe just maybe my 7k lot wouldn’t be everything’s favorite place to be.
We have these black box traps that work really well, but are expensive, so we don’t have many of those. Theoretically, birds can’t get in there. (Freak incident of a baby bird caught over summer.) I put out some of the live catch ones, but it feels evil because the street garden is a winter bird feeder right now, and I’m super worried I’m going to catch some birds. I think I’ll move them in the morning.
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Have you tried leaving the trapped rodents out in visible places to help draw attention from predators?
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Interesting idea. I have not. So, leave the dead mice and voles around the garden? There are some owls and hawks in the neighborhood, the rare raccoon, and mostly its fox that run through. No snakes.
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I don’t know for sure if it helps or not, but it seems like it could.
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i saw a you tube vid about making a rodent poison out of a box of jiffy cornbread to 2 boxes of baking powder and a tbs of pancake syrup. its non toxic to other animals other than rodents that cant burp and kills them that way. i googled several more sources and its legit. havent tried it yet but ill try it this summer in my pvc tube bait stations. i dont want to use poison in the summer. only under the snow in the winter to protect predators and my dogs. might be worth a try. not sure if its bad for birds though. if you can make a trap that keeps them from accessing it it should work.
Interesting. I’ll have to look that up! We have not been using poison for all the reasons. It’s nice you have half a year of snow buffer to make it safer. My husband made some pvc traps, spent a stupid amount of time on them. Not a single rodent in those all year!
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they clean all mine out by spring. i put about 20 tomcat peanut butter bait chunks on the wire per trap. havent seen any damage since they hit us 3 years ago. they eat the bait then go in their burrows to die so no bodies to see or poison. dont want to take the chance in the summer…
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