My chrysanthemums in the stump garden are playing host to an unbelievable amount of baby lady bugs! That's the goods news - bad news is that chipmunks have set up house in the decaying stump! I just got a bobcat/fox urine mix in the mail. Hopefully I'll have some luck with that. I'm also digging up their tunnels and adding permatil (aka vole block - a sharp gravel that pokes tender little paws) to the soil. On top of that, I'm also using Mole-Out, one of the castor oil repellents to get the soil good and nasty tasting. I don't mind sharing my gardens, but the warm winter seems to have created a population explosion in small critters - chipmunks and voles run amok! Between the little nibblers and some butter-fingers action during repairs to an old building in back, I've lost almost a dozen lilies so far.
