The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Today I Feel Good About My Roses

Sometimes when I peruse my favorite gardening blogs and see all the beautiful roses, I feel a bit insecure about my own roses.

Today is not one of those days

Baby Raccoons Wranglers

How many people does it take to capture two tiny baby raccoons?

Answer: Most of my neighborhood.

There was a family of raccoons living under my neighbor Daren’s cottage. The mother raccoon disappeared and left her two babies to fend for themselves. Unfortunately these little guys were fending very noisily and Daren was forced to block the entrance to their nest.

The babies (kits) stuck around because that is what they knew. It was also where their food source was—plums.

Daren didn’t really want them hanging around so we developed a plan.

We would trap them in a live trap. I would drive them to the wildlife rescue center, where loving people who cared about native wildlife would raise them.

After one of the kits walk right up to one of my sons and sniffed his foot, we thought this would be easy. We’ll just set the live trap right in their pathway with lots of yummy plums, blueberries and grapes as bait.

The first night—no raccoons, so we moved the trap.
The second night—no raccoons, we moved the trap again.
Third night—same thing.

This went on for a while and we were getting nervous that we would accidentally trap a skunk instead.

Saturday I got a call from Daren. He said that he’d had a raccoon sighting. I raced across the street to see. They were right there in front of us wandering back and forth on one of Daren’s retaining wall.

What now?

We could set the trap in their path. Would they go in? Naaah. We came up with this elaborate plan. We would throw a heavy blanket over them and hold it down, place the trap in one end and herd them into the trap.

I got a little closer to the babies just to get a feel for it’s exact position and it growled at me. Oooh, I think we need more people to hold down the blanket.

Daren’s teenage daughter and her friend soon joined us. After all, raccoons are members of the bear family. They can be mean. And they weighed about half a pound each for heavens sake.

I brought over the heaviest blanket I had. It’s this huge thing I got at a garage sale. It must weigh 30 pounds—no joke. I checked on the raccoons again and they hissed at me.

We are going to need more people to hold the trap door open and prod them into the cage. So we called our neighbor Marcus, who called our other neighbor Pat. They each brought their families.

Our raccoon wranglers were in place.

Daren and I threw the blanket over the cage—and the raccoons. Pat and Marcus jumped up and over the wall to hold it in place. The teenage girls held the other sides of the blanket down while I held open the cage and pulled the blanket down around the sides.

Nothing.

Let’s face it, the sheer weight of the blanket had probably pinned them to the ground and kept them from going anywhere.

Daren finally lifted the blanket and prodded the poor little things into the cage.
In they came—da-doop da-doop da-doo. They just sauntered in. Then they looked at me, like—it’s the middle of the day, we’re trying to sleep, what do you want?

I shut the cage door and we moved them onto the lawn and covered them up so they wouldn’t get too scared. Of course that was after each of us had stuck our big faces up to the cage and taken pictures.

I called the wildlife rescue center. I was feeling great about saving these little guys and releasing them somewhere safer when they were older and more able to take care of themselves.

I had the number of the wildlife center on my refrigerator. I had taken many orphaned birds there before. They were always so sweet and willing to help.

I dialed the phone and a woman answered. I told her about my little orphans. She told me that she couldn’t take them unless they were injured. Not only that but she was rude to me. What?

She said if they had survived this long without a mom they would be fine. I said maybe so but my neighbor doesn’t want them growing up in his backyard. She said, “Maybe your neighbor should get educated about wildlife.” I said, “How ‘bout I have him call you and you can educate him.” She said “fine”.

But the Center didn’t answer their phone for the rest of the day.

Sheesh, she was not a very nice lady.
After calling a few more places I was given more information in a very pleasant way. Evidently there is law against transporting raccoons. Apparently, if you try to move the raccoons they won’t be able to survive.

In the end, we did relocate the babies but their new home was not too far from the old one and it had a food source.

Sorry this isn’t a better picture, but they weren’t sticking around to say “cheese”

Coleus Cutting

I was fooling with my drip system the other day and I broke a small coleus I had just planted right in half. I swore and my husband who happened to be close by asked me what was wrong.

At which I replied.

“I can’t get this $@@% drip line in the main %^$$#$ line and the %^%& sprinkler head doesn’t %^%$ work right and I think I broke my ^*&^& finger &^^%% nail and I poked my &*&^ hand and then I broke this ^^&**^% coleus that I just *(&^% planted.”

My husband, whom I married because he said he could fix anything but a broken heart, lived up to his promise. He fixed the drip line, kissed my boo- boo and took the little broken coleus in the house. He told me that coleus were super easy to root. He stuck it in some water and a few days later, it was rooted.

Voila.

I have since found out the coleus is a member of the mint family, Lamiaceae.
No wonder they're hard to kill.

My Teenie Tiny Tomatoes

Carol from May Dreams Gardens claims that she has the tiniest tomato.
Well I’ve got her.
She may be a more prolific writer than I am.
She may have a better garden than I have.
She may be a blog-award winner.
I’m not.
She’s probably younger, skinnier, and richer than I am, too.
But I, yes I, me, I have the tiniest tomato.
Wait, I don’t just have the tiniest tomato, I have the tiniest tomatoes.
Aren’t they cute?
Look at them. Ahhh.
I win.

These are red currant tomatoes—of which I have a gazillion.
And that’s a thimble full of them.
Oh, and that’s a dime.
I win.

Greenthumb Sunday

This a sunflower I found in a public garden in Mount Shasta City.
Check out the color of the sky.

Creeping or Creepy?

I love vines, especially vines like this passion vine.
But it sure seems to have a mind of it’s own.
Here you see it trying to pay a visit to my husband’s office.
It climbed over a fence, over an arbor and around an oak tree.
Maybe it has a thing for my husband?
Should I be jealous?
Ha. I’m just kidding.
Has anyone seen my clippers?

Finally A Flower

One of my long-suffering coneflower seedlings finally bloomed.
I feel like cutting it and freeze-drying it or bronzing it or something to prove it actually bloomed.
For the time being, I’ll just enjoy it and hope one of my dogs or kids doesn’t step on it.
What type of coneflower is it you ask?
If I find the paper work that I crumpled up and threw away after the snails ate them, or maybe it was when they developed white flies, I’ll let you know.

Greenthumb Sunday

Yellow Begonia

Gardener's Anonymous is on vacation.
I will be back next weekend.

Confused Favas

Gardens are full of surprises.
Every day there is something new:
A ripe tomato,
A new flower,
An interesting insect,
A fava plant,
A fava plant?
What the…?
Fava beans are winter plants.
It’s a bajillion degrees out.
It’s bone dry.
This fava is very confused.
I’ll let you know if it produces anything.

How to buy one plant—and get 26 FREE! or How to get 27 plants for $3.59

Sempervivum tectorum 'Emerald Empress' with babies

Here is one of my plant buying secrets. When shopping for succulents I always scan the plant isles for succulents with offsets—the little identical plants that grow at the base of the mother plants. Like “Hens and Chicks.”

Like the time my friend bought this cute fat little pet rat for her daughter. Well, a couple weeks later she had seven pet rats. It’s kind of like that.

(But, in my opinion, the succulent idea has a better outcome.)

Normally I don’t buy succulents unless I go to a succulent show and buy unusual plants for my collection. They are just too easy to propagate from leaves or offsets.

You can easily pull off these offsets, and plant them.

You are supposed to let them dry a bit before you plant them, but I never do and haven’t lost a single one yet.

The offsets grow really fast. It doesn’t take long before they reach the size of the mature plant.

The main plant benefits, too: All the energy that the plant was using to keep its offsets alive is suddenly reinvested back in the main plant.

So next time you’re plant shopping, buy the pregnant plant.