I can not imagine being without my yard, so happy you found a place to garden. Giving up your old one must have been so hard.

Impressed by your story of embracing change and being there for your daughter! I have a mostly perennial native garden here in CA, and have not had much luck with annuals. This year I planted a few: zinnias, sunflowers, campanula, black eyed susan vines, nasturtiums and pansies. Most of the seeds have sprouted, fingers crossed they will actually bloom!

Welcome to MN, docmom. Today my lilacs have started to open and I see apple blossoms throughout the neighborhood. Spring in MN is late but so lovely.

I am loving the sunshine and balmy breezes. It is much sunnier here than in Michigan. Lake Michigan creates large clouds that drop rain and snow, plus block the sun. So, I am finding Minnesota much brighter than Michigan was. It cheers my soul!

Martha

Wow, Minnesota much brighter than Michigan? Now that I would never have thought! It would be hard for me to give up my gardens; it sounds like you are taking it in stride and adapting well, and of course family is more important than a garden. Any plans to buy a place eventually?

Annuals are easy and satisfying - you should get a great show of color from what you planted! How about throwing in a few milkweed plants for the butterflies? Just remember to mark them as permanent for next year's assignee.

I plan to try to keep my plots, if I can, in future years. I will definitely plant milkweeds next year, but didn't know whether I would have anywhere to plant them, so didn't cold stratify any seeds over the winter. If I find any tropical milkweed, I would plant it for this summer. But, I prefer to stick to natives when I can. I would be satisfied if this year's garden provides an oasis for the pollinators of all sorts. I did throw down some dill seed for the swallowtails.

Martha

Update on my garden plot. The rabbits ate my lantana down to stubs, and every effort to resprout was summarily munched immediately. Similarly, the lush strawberry plants and the hundreds of blossom ended up as chewed stems with a bare handful of miniature, still-white fruit. I do have seedlings of zinnias, calendula, malva sylvestris, cosmos, Monarda (not sure which ones, yet), and coreopsis tinctoria. They are not big enough to even take pictures of. I did purchase some Pentas, and zinnias, plus a single ageratum. The whole point of my gardening is for the pollinators, so I hope those can survive the rabbits enough to continue to bloom. Next year, I definitely need to get back into wintersowing. Even annuals get a better head start, with more consistent germination and earlier warming of the growing medium. I just hope I will be allowed to leave my sowing containers in the garden plot. They might be considered an eye-sore. Ah, well.

Martha

Oh no!! Darn rabbits!! I live next to a creek, and all the animals that travelled up and down the banks thought of my yard as the roadside diner! I wound up having to put up frames with chicken wire for my veggie beds, but so far my flowers and fruits have been ignored by the local wildlife!

Hi Martha,

" The rabbits ate my lantana down to stubs, and every effort to resprout
was summarily munched immediately. Similarly, the lush strawberry plants
and the hundreds of blossom ended up as chewed stems... "

Just out of curiosity, did the rabbits do damage in some of the other plots, and were there any obvious anti-rabbit measures being taken in those plots? Would you be allowed to erect a 2-foot chicken-wire "fence" around your plot?

ZM

They'll eat the Malva too, I know this because they just ate all the leaves off my malva mauritiana and zebrina, just when the plants were starting to take off.

ZM,

There is chicken wire around the entire group of garden plots, but I haven't done a search for holes along the entire perimeter. Other individual plots do have chicken wire surrounding them. I don't know exactly what others have planted, but the plot next to mine has had definite nibbling going on. I am planning to construct rabbit protection as soon as I locate materials. Of course, it could be a woodchuck or ground hog, and they would climb any fence with no problem. I'm not too upset, since I really should have removed the strawberry blossoms this season, anyway, and the plants still look great. The flowers are also not a huge loss. I had just wanted to get a head start for the pollinators. This season is a learning phase. Eventually, my seedlings will get going and the blossoms will multiply. Actually, my biggest frustration is having my garden so far from home. In order to get there, I need to leave work, drive to my apartment, change clothes, go back to the parking structure to get my car, drive to the hospital, get the key to the shed, and then finally get my hands dirty. It was much easier when I could wander the gardens in my pajamas before bed, or first thing in the morning, steps from my door. And I can't see the results from my window, and I don't have daily changes greeting me when I arrive home from work each day. I really need to buy a house, or rent somewhere that has a yard I could play in. The housing market in the Twin Cities is crazy. The average cost of a single family dwelling is over $250,000, and most houses are on the market less than three days. Oh, well. I will take it one day at a time. There is so much more to life than my gardening, and I really have no excuse for complaining. I am blessed. But, here I have friends who understand my longing for a garden.

Martha

How about taking a change of clothes with you to work so you can change at the end of the work day and get right out there? That would be my MO.

I have considered that, Paul, but my dog is in the apartment with her legs crossed. She also likes to go to the garden with me.

That's what I would do too Paul! What about a doggy daycare nearby some days?

A friend of my sister's does something like that, Erin. She sends them to doggy daycare several days a week while she is at work. That way the dogs get some exercise and socialization with other dogs and aren't "climbing the walls" by the time she comes home. May not be an option for Docmom, though.

My dog, Ziva, is an 8 year old Newfoundland. In layman' terms, that translates into a giant, fluffy, loveable couch potato. She probably would enjoy doggy daycare, but her energy level probably isn't worth the expense.

Martha

Simply get some PlantSkydd, either granular or spray, and save yourself the cost and labor of fencing. It repels even groundhogs and has kept the opossums out of my yard, along with deer, squirrels and rabbits. I couldn't garden without it. In summer you apply it every 3-4 months, and one application in Fall will protect your plants/shrubs over the Winter. Good luck! (It's organic, too, and won't harm your dog---although mine sniffs and sniffs it---yech!)

Virginia, the PlantSkydd sounds almost too good to be true. Do you really only apply it every 3-4 months? Or did you mean to say weeks? Rain doesn't wash it away? And it is safe for edible plants?

All of the above, Docmom. It was developed in Sweden for their forestry industry, and it's the only thing I've found that works as advertised without constant re-application. Well worth the money.

Hi June Bug,

The spelling of the product does seem kind of Swedish. Any idea what is in it? I might try it myself if the occasion arises, although I have been lucky in that department so far, here in rural Kansas. The occasional deer tracks were "just passing through". And this year the bobcats have not been using my sand pile as a restroom. And we haven't heard a mountain lion this year. It has been a relatively quiet year, except for the current fireworks.

Oh, and every now and then during the year someone fires a repeating shotgun that sounds almost fully automatic. I can't imagine what kind of varmint needs to be shot with 20 12-gauge shotgun shells. The sheer weight of the pellets should bring it down. Maybe a chupacabra. Does PlantSkydd work against chupacabras?

ZM

No clue on the chupacabras, Zan_man! PlantSkydd is made with a lot of different kinds of blood--Porcine, bovine, etc. You can check it out at Plantskydd.com where it's all listed, along with a location finder for a store near you. If there is none close by, you can even order online. It would probably keep those bobcats and mountain lions away too, although I doubt it will stop the shotgun wielder.