Your Home, Garden and Travel

There have been times when I have blamed the deer for eating one of my "deer resistant" perennials. After all, deer tracks around the hardy geraniums provided clear evidence. So, I moved those geraniums inside the cottage garden fence, out of reach of the deer.

And, the geraniums were munched! To the ground. So, let's be fair in our accusations. Deer will munch on many wonderful garden plants, but sometimes the culprit is a rabbit.

How do you tell the difference between deer damage and rabbit damage?

If you are a gardener, you probably own a good pair of sharp, hand pruners to use for plant cuttings. The teeth of a rabbit are razor-sharp and the damage will look as though someone expertly cut the plant stems. A perfect, clean cut.

Deer will pull and tear at the plant, so the cut will be ragged. Like cows, deer are ruminants and have no upper incisors. They chew their cud just like a cow. Fawns have only four little milk teeth. As they learn about foods to eat, the little ones will try out different plants in the garden. I can tell when deer have tried a plant and rejected it, because they spit it out on the ground. Sometimes in their pulling, they will completely uproot a plant.

Not rabbit resistant

Among the many deer resistant perennials in my garden, there are several perennials that I've found to be consistently preferred by rabbits.

1. Aster
2. Dutch iris
3. Echinacea (coneflowers)
4. Rudbeckia (black-eyed susans)

I gave up on asters completely (although they appear on many rabbit resistant lists) and I no longer try to protect the rudbeckia. I use rabbit repellent on the echinacea until the plants grow above rabbit nose height. By the way, I use no deer repellents in the unfenced gardens.

My favorite rabbit repellent, I Must Garden, has no bad odor, lasts a long time and is earth and pet friendly. The product is made locally, but I have no affiliation with the company.

Was it just luck that the rabbits didn't eat my Benary's Giant Zinnias? (photo September 2009)

Dutch iris foliage emerges in January and February, but it will be the bud formations that will need spraying as we approach March and April.

The rabbits can easily go under the cottage garden fence where they have eaten more Dutch irises, scabiosa and annual gomphrena. I suspect they are nibbling a bit on the dianthus (cottage pinks) and phlox sublulata (creeping phlox) and leucanthemum (shasta daisy).

I know that they will eat phlox paniculata 'David' but they ignore phlox paniculata 'Robert Poore' and 'Eva Cullum'.

The rabbits devour geranium 'Rozanne' but they never touch geranium 'Brookside'.

This selection among varieties is a mystery to me. My only hypothesis so far is that the rabbits didn't find my garden until after the uneaten phlox and geraniums had matured. They found my garden when the 'David' phlox and 'Rozanne' geraniums were newly planted and not established. Tender little plants should be protected!

Rabbit resistant plants in my garden

There are many more plants on rabbit resistant lists. However, I'm including only those that I have personally tried in my garden. Of course, rabbit damage may vary in your garden.

Agastache
Ageratum (some nibbles)
Allium (ornamental; some nibbles on culinary chives)
Amsonia hubrichtii
Anemone
Angelonia
Asclepias (milkweed)
Azalea
Balloon Flower
Baptisia
Buddleia
Canna
Carex
Caryopteris
Clematis
Cleome
Coreopsis
Crocosmia
Daffodils
Daylily
Gaillardia
Geum
Ginger
Helianthus (swamp sunflower)
Heliotropium amplexicaule (creeping perennial heliotrope)
Herbs - basil, fennel, lavender, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme
Hypericum (St. John's Wort)
Ice Plant
Iris (Japanese - foliage nibbles)
Lantana
Lamb's ear
Larkspur
Marigold
Miscanthus
Muhlenbergia
Monarda (Bee Balm)
Mum
Nepeta
Petunia
Poppy
Pulmonaria
Russian Sage
Salvia (elegans, nemorosa, greggii)
Sedum
Snapdragons
Spirea
Spanish Bluebell
Verbena (perennial 'Homestead' and bonariensis)
Zinnia (no problems, other gardeners report problems)

Rabbits and deer can do a lot of damage. The loss can be discouraging. Although there are no guarantees in growing plants on rabbit resistant and deer resistant lists, you can minimize the disappointments. You can have a beautiful garden in spite of rabbits and deer!

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks/copyrights/patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

I have over 10,000 photographs stored on my computer. I would have more, but I decided to be ruthless and delete a few thousand. I'm sure I'll soon regret that action, so the photos are still sitting in the electronic trash can. Dumpster-diving on a computer isn't too messy.

I store the photos month-by-month throughout the calendar year. After the year ends, I decide how to reorganize the photos so that I can easily find a certain flower that bloomed in.... was it May or June?

Last year, I started adding keywords (tags) to my photos so that I could filter my search. For tags, I used the location in the garden as well as color (magenta, orange, red, yellow, etc.). I'd like to tag every flower by variety, but that seems like too much work... from Agastache to Zinnia.

I'm on to a new idea that will take the gardening world by storm!

I use an Apple MacBook with iPhoto. The iPhoto software has "face recognition" capabilities. I tried it out for everyone in our family and it worked beautifully! Searching those 10,000 photos, it recognized each and everyone of us.

The most amazing thing is that this face recognition software can pick a face out of a crowd! Yes! It picked up faces in places that I didn't even know were in the photos! I was relieved that Osama bin Laden nor any other terrorists were found among my thousands of photos.

This iPhoto feature posts all of the "Faces" on a corkboard background. Click on a person. Magic. All of the photos of that person are displayed. Easy, cute, clever and it works great!

Of course, being the technical geek that I am, I decided to try this face recognition software on flower photos.

The coneflower (echinacea) has a very recognizable "face" in my opinion. I pulled up a happy flower face and told iPhoto to "Name" it "Coneflower."

Unfortunately, iPhoto couldn't recognize Coneflower's face among the thousands of photos. Hmm... Is it unrecognizable because the coneflower doesn't have two eyes?

Undaunted, I tried Gaillardia's face, but had no results.

Just think. If we had flower recognition software, we could easily organize our gardening photos. Flower Recognition Software would be able to pick a coneflower out of a garden full of gaillardias.

Excuse me, but I'm off to write an email to Apple's iPhoto development team!



Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks/copyrights/patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

When I first started gardening in my early twenties, I learned from other people.

My friends, family and neighbors showed me their beautiful flower beds and gardens. Bearded irises, daffodils, daylilies and hostas were divided and shared with me. I appreciated the knowledge and inspiration that was passed on to me. I learned to garden from other people. I felt like an expert!

Then, I was introduced to gardens created in other places where I couldn't visit - a whole new realm of ideas, plants and gardening existed.

Print Media Plays a Role in Learning

In 1974, a family member gave me a yearly subscription to Southern Living® Magazine and that was my introduction into reading about flowers, shrubs and trees. And oh, what pretty garden pictures! Every month, I looked forward to opening the mailbox to find my glossy magazine.

Receiving that gift of a magazine subscription turned me into a more inspired gardener. I cut out articles and pictures to save in a folder so that I wouldn't lose the ideas and information.

With my expanded interest, I was soon receiving gardening books as gifts, too. That wasn't enough - I'd go search bookstores for hours looking for books to add to my collection.

I improved my gardening skills with reference books of in-depth chapters, plant lists and growing conditions, design suggestions and how-to sections to include everything from preparing the soil to managing pests to pruning branches.

The Southern Living® Garden Book, first published in 2004, is one of my favorite resources. That thick (and now well-worn) book sits in my garden room within easy reach as I gaze out my windows and plan my next garden project. The book's editor is Steve Bender and many photos were taken by Ralph Anderson.

The Web Plays a Role In Learning

Little did I know that one day, Ralph and Steve (the Grumpy Gardener) would walk through and photograph my gardens! We "met" through reading each other's online gardening blogs.

Through the Web, I have "met" so many other gardeners though blogs, forums and by reading published articles in online magazines and newspapers. Many plants are in my garden today because I learned about them in the online community.

It's not often that we get to walk through each other's gardens. But, with each piece of information shared, each introduction to a new plant or inspiration through photographs, we are sharing "how to garden" with each other.

Readers from all over the world can access what we write by searching for a topic, a word or a photograph. That information is being stored in electronic file folders somewhere, just like the paper clippings that I cut from print media.

We Learn From a Combination of People, Print Media and Electronic Media

My path to learning how to garden has been through a combination of people, print media and electronic media.

Will future gardeners begin the path in reverse - starting with an introduction through electronic media, then by reading print media to expand their knowledge and then by joining in-person gardening communities? I hope so.

The Web shouldn't be an exclusive path to interacting with people or reading magazines and books. Sure, it's easy. But, how much would have been missed by not learning in-person from each other, or not holding printed media in our hands?

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks/copyrights/patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

It doesn't take a gardener to appreciate the beauty of containers. The perfect spot of color doesn't go unnoticed.

Shopping malls and streets often boast containers year-round. Many are planted with evergreens that get added punches of color from annuals and perennials with the changing seasons. You can find container garden inspiration everywhere.

Creating your own beautiful container garden is easy and you don't have to be a gardener to follow the instructions and have success.

There is no shortage of container garden "recipes" from magazines, growers and retailers. Many of these recipes are easy to find online. If you don't want to plant a container yourself, then you can purchase pre-planted container gardens at many nurseries. There are also many gardeners, garden centers and florists who specialize in creating custom containers.

Resources for recipes and container gardening tips:

Better Homes and Gardens
Fine Gardening
P. Allen Smith Garden Home
Proven Winners
Southern Living
Terra Nova Nurseries, Inc.

If you want the plants from published container garden recipes, you'd best shop early!

With everyone reading the same resources, the featured plants are the first to sell out. I bought most of my container annuals in March last year! In fact, the greenhouse owner told me that he'd be sold out of thousands of plants by the first week in April. Be prepared to have substitutions in mind, and remember that every container doesn't have to be elaborate. I keep my early purchases in a sheltered holding area until the freezes end in mid-April.

That said, you don't have to plant all of your containers in the spring. In late summer, when the garden is fading, the nurseries will be stocking fall-blooming plants so you can freshen up your porches and patios.

For all-season containers, try a small shrub, tree or rose that is interesting throughout the year. I have arborvitae in huge pots by my swimming pool; a potted miniature rose by my waterfall; and, a container herb garden in my front cottage garden. I let the annual grasses in my containers remain through the winter - though they lose their color and fade to tan, the structure provides interest in ice and snow.

A beautiful container can be the focal point instead of the flowers, too. I use a simple combination of purple petunias and basil on my outdoor dining table because I love the clay pot.

The basil and petunias are pinched back to keep the arrangement tidy and low so that we can have conversations across the table. The basil smells great and is edible, too. Basil, and other herbs make great companions to flowers.

Enjoy the fun and reward of creating your own container garden recipe!

My best tip for creating a container garden recipe of your own is to go to a nursery with a color scheme in mind. Pick your tall plant first to be your focal point - based on color, sun/shade and your container. Then, walk around with that plant until you see mounding plants, with the same growing conditions, that complement your focal point plant. Select one or two mounding plants, then try to find a plant that will spill over the edges. Sometimes, I just tilt a mounding plant in the pot so that it spills over the edge.

Be warned, container gardening is addictive - once you start, you'll have containers everywhere!

Click on the images for these container recipes

I'd love to see the container garden photos and recipes from other bloggers - so, please link in the comments.

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks/copyrights/patents owned by those respective companies or persons.