The Battle for the Buds is going well this year. All of the Coneflowers and Deerlilies Daylilies are beginning to bloom. They are all fresh and delicate and yummy looking.
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| Prima Ginger Echinacea |
This is when they are at their most vulnerable to deer.
I can understand why they are appealing. When the Daylily buds are at this stage it looks like a candy store. Those buds must just pop in your mouth like a gumdrop. I can see the allure. If I had been browsing on twigs all day, the sight of dewy, fresh, poppable buds would be mouth watering.
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| Happy Returns Daylily |
Every morning when I open the drapes and look out my bedroom window and see all of these these yellow Lilies and white Daisies still intact it puts a smile on my face.
It makes all of the work worthwhile.
And it still requires work. Removing all of the orange lilies along the front fence was a huge step in the right direction. Not only does it save me time and money, but it was a huge attraction to bring the deer through in the first place. Next I have made some pretty good strides in protecting the plants I want to keep with netting. I still have plants in tempting locations (below).
These plants have suffered a little damage here and there.
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| Empty Stems |
Even though they are netted, I still spray with Repels-All after every rain. This makes them smell less like food. I spray pretty much everything, including shrubs and annuals. Every evening, the last thing I do in the garden is walk through with a bottle of Bonide Hot Pepper Wax and give the most vulnerable blooms a light spritz, especially nearest the spots I walk by every day and want to enjoy the blooms. Also, the flowers along the edges of the netting and anything that looks like it will open in the morning.
This way if the deer do munch on those, they will get the most unpleasant taste I can miuster and move on.
I have to say that the Daylilies have never looked better. Plants that never had a chance before are absolutely full of buds.
Of course Daylilies and Coneflowers are not the only thing that looks appetizing. I have to be protective of the Clematis vines. Those are full of delicate buds and fragrant flowers too.
In the vegetable garden, I picked a gallon of peas. This is the second and largest picking for this crop. There are still peas coming but not in this volume. By the time I got them all shelled my thumbs were sore! I had to use the big pot to blanch them. I freeze them in pint bags for individual meals.
