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Where Have All the Flowers Gone? On Daylilies and Woodchucks

© Barbara M. Martin

This week, in celebration of the national independence holiday here in the United States of America, I thought I'd write a little bit about freedom. Freedom of a different sort, perhaps, but freedom nonetheless.

Well, to make a long story short, while I believe woodchucks should chuck wood, I WANT MY DAYLILIES BACK!!!!!

If you need to know what daylilies are, check Ellen Roddy's new topic and recent column A Brief History of Daylilies and this will help explain the situation.

For some pretty pictures to help you envision the appropriate setting:

scenes from my garden taken since we moved here in late fall 1993, (basically, we inherited a set of foundation-planting yews and a big close-clipped lawn); and

my treasured Suite 101

Prize Winning Tacky Yard Art, collected over a number of years and, surprisingly enough, exhibiting a number of animal motifs! (This proves I actually have a soft heart and a sense of humor!)

My garden is a country garden. It is also a cottage garden. It is a family garden, a flower garden, a veggie garden, and a playground. Many birds and animals visit, as do snakes, butterflies and frogs and toads. We have fish in the various little ponds, salamanders in the woods, and woodchucks in the Havahart trap.

Yes, you read that right. Nobody ELSE talks about woodchucks.

For example, here's an EXCELLENT website from The Gardens at Thunder Ridge all about attracting DESIRABLE wildlife -- birds, butterflies, hummers, beneficial insects, toads, bats, snakes, owls. But NO woodchucks!

I try to keep things in balance and write about interesting things in the garden -- I even promised I'd write about bats soon -- but nobody besides me will talk about undesirables like woodchucks. That's because they are NOT particularly desirable around the house, let alone the garden.

The line between warm and fuzzy "cute critters" and "varmints" is a very fine line. Not to mention the neighbor's occasionally wayward pet billy goat and the hordes of marauding deer. When does a visit end and unwelcome trespass begin? What about damages? There is no "scoop your poop" law for wild animals! Let alone the "You touch it, you eat it, you bought it!" rule. Not to mention little signs that say "KEEP OFF THE GRASS!" or "Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted!"

Sometimes, as parent, homeowner, and gardener, I feel cornered. It is never easy to balance man against nature. We are fighting the battle as I speak -- someone has to take the latest live catch somewhere and let it go. (I hope the designated lucky catch-and-release driver doesn't get bitten! I suspect it's my turn -- my husband went last time!) A woodchuck had claimed the swing set area as its territory. And that's too close to OUR home for OUR comfort and safety. So we trapped it in a box trap. (The nice Agway boiler repair man said to use a trail of nice lettuce as bait. We used that and melon rind and it worked like a charm! Apple, on the other hand, was a total dud as bait.)

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