“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 791 (Monday) – fork it

Lilac in bloom.

This year, there is an active plan to protect the Columbine. For five years, some garden rodent has eaten the buds, and the one flower that opened that one day for a few hours before it was snatched from the stem and became lunch. Nature is cruel

There were a few possibilities considered. One involved cutting a two-liter soda bottle and placing it around the plant. That plan would require getting a soda bottle, and I don’t drink soda, but that’s not an impossible situation.

Another idea was to cut out the bottom of a plastic flower pot and set it around the plant. There are a couple empty pots in the shed.

When I read about groundhogs not liking mint, I put a pot of it in the flower bed next to the Columbine. If not for the invasive properties, I would have planted the mint in the ground. It's one straggly spring of mint that grew from the plant that was in the pot last year, so there is not a lot of hope.

The final idea was not my own, but it was a good one. Mom told me that her friend protects her plants by planting plastic forks around them. Bingo! There are at least a dozen plastic forks in the silverware drawer from delivery orders, and about 100 of them in a box in the cabinet over the fridge from that one time in Tennessee when I had a big party. 

Fork 'n Columbine.

After arriving home from ice cream with Mom for Mother’s Day, I raided the silverware drawer and gathered some forks, which were planted around the Columbine. Any critter that approaches the plant will bump into some pokey plastic tines. I may fortify the flower fortress with more forks in the morning, to be safer.

The next garden challenges include staking the peonies and learning about pruning lilacs. Last year the peonies were big and heavy the bent over stems clearly needed some support. The lilac has grown to six feet tall and finally has flowers after five years. I remember hearing once that the flowers should be picked to ensure future flowers. Or something. 

I’ve really been regretting giving away my one gardening book when I moved back from Tennessee. Looks like I should hit the library book sale on Friday.