3 Good Reasons for the Deer Fence

Reason number one: The Brown-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia fulgida) that have been growing in my garden for years look like they were hit with a mower this year. I salvaged what I could today by transplanting them at Eklund (photo above), which is protected by a deer fence. Not sure how many will make it - some are mostly just stems.

Reason number two: My native Woodland Phlox at home had most of the blooms neatly nipped off (photo). Phlox spread each year, so I cut away the excess and transplanted that at Eklund today.

Reason number three: The Purple Coneflower in my garden has been nipped off repeatedly the past few years. I took the pathetic remains and transplanted them next to the healthy Purple Coneflower from Earth Tones that was just planted this year at Eklund. Compare the two in the above photo. The one from my garden is the sad thing on the right. It's supposed to look just like the one on the left. Actually it should be bigger since it wasn't a new plant in a pot, but well established in a garden.

Prickly Pear Cactus

The cactus bed is complete - six native Prickly Pear, all from Twombly Nursery in Monroe. I learned that the nearly-invisible thorns will go right through a leather glove. I don't know how, since they look so fragile, but they do. I pulled my glove off, and there they were sticking out of my thumb, and really hard to pull out. Lacking tweezers, I had to use my teeth. After that, to remove the cacti from the pots I just turned them upside down and shook them until they plopped on the ground.

They have two types of barbs: the 1 inch-long dangerous-looking ones, and the nearly-invisible slivers. The big ones tend to fall out, leaving the truly hazardous ones to attack you.

Prickly Pear grows naturally in Connecticut along the coast. You can see it at the Milford Point Coastal Audubon Center along the boardwalk.

Hayscented Fern

Hayscented Fern is spreading rapidly across the upper terrace this spring since the brush was cut and the terrace raked. That's good, because we have nothing planned for that terrace at the moment. This particular fern is known as a native invasive species in areas with high deer population (like Shelton) because the deer tend to eat everything but the fern, allowing it to spread. It's also unusual in that it spreads by runners. More and more you can find large swaths of forest blanketed with hayscented fern.

Well, anyways, it IS native, so we'll just let it take over the terrace for now. There's some Black Swallowwort coming in as well -- that has to go!

Before & After Photos

Here's a "before" shot of the garden hillside in 2007 covered with invasive Black Swallowwort vine.

And here's the same location today, newly planted with blueberry, harebell, stiff aster, bear berry, and prickly pear cactus. Click HERE to see more "before" and "after" pictures.

Planting Day!!

Most of the plants are in the ground! All that's left are some shade plants for the far bed (on the right). Yesterday I faked myself out thinking the sun conditions were different than what I had planned for and quickly revised my planting plan. I laid out the plant and then kept changing things around based on where the sun was coming up and where I thought there would be shade during the day. After all, there is a really big oak tree over much of the Butterfly Garden.

Every hour I took video and pictures of all the beds to document what was in sun or shade. Then suddenly around lunchtime the sun slid to an opening in the trees and the entire garden was in full sun. This prompted rearranging of the plants I had already rearranged.

Biscuit didn't care about me planting - she preferred to eat a pine tree. About 2:00 the trees to the west began to shade out part of the garden and by 4:00 all of it was in dappled shade.

There it is! Anyone need any plastic plant containers?

Earth Tones Delivery

The big day has arrived! A pick-up truck bursting with perennials dropped off the above load from Earth Tones in Woodbury. We now have most of the plants purchased with the Iroquois grant (a few hundred dollars was reserved for filling in any holes).

Here's Foamflower, an attractive shade plant.

And here are some Woodland Phlox in bloom. Native to Connecticut, although I don't think I've ever seen it in the wild. Deer are known to love phlox, so perhaps that's why.

Yesterday I repaired some of the fallen rock work on either side of the steps on the left side of the hill, giving more places to plant, and scraped off the end of the sidewalk, which was covered in a creeping non-native sedum.

Final Bed Preparation

Back-breaking work today spreading the Sweet Peat over the Butterfly Garden and mixing it into the soil by shovel. Richard didn't have access to his rototiller, or at least he thought he didn't until he got home and found a voice mail message saying he could pick up his rototiller!

Notice the raised bed behind Richard in the picture above -- the rocks have fallen over. After we finished with the Butterfly Garden we repaired the rockwork - it took Richard and Ryan together to move the larger rocks into place. The picture below shows the bed ready for planting.