When a bear likes your solar lights as much as you do, but nevertheless leaves it behind, semi intact, and still working, and you discover it while clearing the ferns from the area that will house next year’s 1 year old pollinator created daylily seedlings. You use a shepherd’s hook – that wasn’t bent by said bear – and holds it (kind of), hoping you will find the hanger, somewhere.
The bird feeder was not quite so fortunate.
So, the little house up north can boast a new homeowner. She was a delight and a dream, but so much changed in such a short time – for great – that it no longer made sense. We never ever ever intended to have three places. Something had to give, and it was the little house up north.
So I am back, for now, until we find an alternative, at “what can I creatively do at the camping/hunting land up north?” Clearly some things at the townhouse need a new home.
Poor things! They are 3-4 years and they just keep getting stepped on, cut, blown, and pulled out. Time for new digs.
The “garden” up north looks like this (cringe/avert gaze at the raised bed garden area).
The good news is … the asparagus I planted 3 years ago survived!!! 😉 Even the deer left it alone. And the non-blooming iris and the forced daffodils from a “watch em grow” garden are thriving in a depression just to the left, outside of the raised bed area. We think the deer might have enough food with the dandelions, and then the wildflowers, until they can browse on new shrub growth. The bears have raspberry bushes way down the trail… WAY down the trail, and they will stay WAY down the trail. Because we don’t need them up at the campsite, at least when we’re there.
It will take some work, and some investment in something like a protective area, but I could, at least, have an area for reasonably mature seedlings that need safety and protection from their current situation.
For two years of a detour, it also feels good to have left some garden creations at the little house up north. 7 of 12 pollinator created daylily seedlings survived, and 3 of 4 Blue Mouse Ears divisions survived. Plus some more mature daylilies and the sedum divisions of course. Given some love, in a couple years it should start to fill those spaces very nicely.
At the little house we are retiring to up north, we have a bear that has been seen walking through the woods behind our neighborhood.
Over 15 years ago my Dad gave me an alpine currant bush. It got too big for my gardening area close to the house, and we needed a shrub for the garden between the garages, so I transplanted it. It did fabulously. The birds absolutely loved it. We loved it there. And we don’t have bears there, that we know of, pretty sure. Coyotes yes, but not bears.
Recently the alpine currant was removed as part of an association-wide initiative. All the shrubs between the garages were pulled and replaced with asphalt. I was bummed, but it was getting woody. It was probably going to need replacement within a few years anyway. As an experiment, I took some alpine currant rootings, and I planted them up north. They are doing really well.
Bears like berries. The alpine currant produces berries in abundance. Not thinking about bears, I planted the alpine currant pretty close to the house. Oops! It might be time to move the alpine currant.
If I put it at the back of the yard that could work. Dare I start another garden area out there?
Susan's Daily Garden 