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Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Red




These are the most beautiful flowers and add a light to my life. The red is brilliant.




And... my gophers don't eat them (crossing fingers). They will even eat the garlic, just not as often. They LOVE roses and they have taken down a full grown apricot tree after (thank goodness) the first full crop. The apricots were some of the best I have ever eaten, which made it so hard to lose the tree.


One year they undermined the road (dug a hole under the road) and a big rain came and washed through the whole and washed out part of the road, when the rain was over there was a hole on the side of the road I could stand in. I am short, but it still came up to my thighs.




So I now spend time trying to find things that they won't eat. I also plant in chicken wire baskets that I make but that is no guarantee either. I drill holes in Cat litter buckets and plant in those, not so good for the bigger things though. But they don't go through those either. The buckets will also break down in a few years from the sun out here and have to be replaced. They have to be watered and fertilized more often also.


I get a perverse thrill after watering and seeing the mounds of dirt around the bucket and the plant still there. You know the movie with Bill Murray , Caddyshack ,that is real.




That's how I ended up with the huge crop of garlic I have. The gopher would dig a hole, and I would stuff a clove of garlic down there, LOL! We even have cloves of garlic in the little pathways. These don't get watered often.



It only worked for a bit and then he started on the tops of the garlic. He comes out of the ground for those. I believe the bulbs are still there, because the shoots will start again. You know the cartoons of the whole plant going into the ground a lit at a time, bit by bit, that is real people, I have seen it.

Green is green in my opinion and even if it is garlic, it is beautiful to me in the summer here. But those red flowers are divine.

10 comments:

  1. Hey Mur! Too bad that the only gopher repellent plant is castor bean. Of course that's what they use to make the dreaded ricin so it's horribly poisonous - not something you want in your yard! You would think that a people that can send things to the moon would have figured out a decent gopher repellent, wouldn't you? xxoo

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  2. OH really!!!... They grow wild here. They are beautiful plants and have the most interesting pods. I have a picture some place I will have to dig it up.
    Gophers are really annoying creatures Mer. My heart just broke when the tree died.
    There is something called gopher purge. I used to grow it everywhere, better check in to that again.
    I wish Nasa would get to work on this.
    Maybe that is why they leave it alone. Failures look terrible when you are looking for funding. ;-D

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  3. Hi Marie,, I love geraniums and I know what you mean about green in the heat. LOL I am sorry you are having gopher trouble,,,little buggers.:)
    How have you been? I have been keeping busy, so thats a good thing. I love the photos of your Goddess' . They are soooo pretty. Your work is awesome! Have a pretty day. Gail

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  4. Hey Gail,
    So great to hear from you!
    I bet you do understand about the green, it gets to the point that even artificial flowers start to look wonderful come about the end of July. LOL!! I don't mind brown at all but... Geesh!
    I see you have been busy, noticed you have some new stuff up there and Cupcakes and cute stuff, I love the new jewelry too. Beautiful!!!
    Thank you Gail!!

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  5. ha great flower photo. also love bill murray. we live in the town that the movie Groundhog Day was filmed so all our kids met him during the filming.
    nikonsniper

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  6. Why thank you very much Stephen. Just hoping maybe some day I will hit something.
    ;-D
    I love looking at your page it provides me with something to aspire to.
    I used to make fun of Caddyshack as being ridiculous until I had dealings with the gophers that live here.
    Your children must have loved meeting him!! I would.

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  7. Yah, I've seen those critters eat sunflowers from the bottom up -- who knew cartoons were real?!

    Your geranium is fabulous -- I may have to steal a cutting next time I visit!

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  8. Sunflower??? Ho ho ho I bet that was funny. Did it spin around too.
    Soemtimes when they pull stuff through here they spin them trying to get them out. If it wasn't my hard won garden, I would enjoy it.

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  9. Ha ha ha that is so funny to me. I never ever thought of gophers as a problem. I don't even know if I have really ever seen one.

    xoxo

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  10. They are just surviving, but I eat the food too and don't want to poison them. Garlic anyone??? So it is a battle to find things they don't eat and out smart them with tricks like baskets and buckets. I find it bothers me more when they out smart me!! ;-D

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I am so glad you stopped by. Please leave your words of wisdom. I look forward to them and I so enjoy reading them all.
Live to love, Love to create, and create to connect.
Marie

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