Wednesday 16 February 2011

mystery pests and the problem with chopped bark

I went down the garden to plant out a tray of primroses I got at the farm shop (twelve chunky module grown plants for a fiver.  I had some before and they were excellent).  Something has been digging again.  Looking at where the holes were and the remains of leaves lying around I worked out it had gone for the variegated leaf arums.  From the scale of the holes this wasn't a mouse or a vole.  Rabbits?  Badgers?  I can't blame the cats for not taking on badgers.  We were chatting a few evenings ago about how nowadays you can get small motion sensitive infrared cameras mounted in a waterproof box, that store their own data for several weeks so don't need linking to a computer.  I think we might need one sooner rather than later.  I want to know what it is and where it's getting in.  (A friend rigged up a camera on the end of his garage to find out what was setting off his dogs at one o'clock every morning, attached to an old PC in the garage.  Unfortunately the noise of the fan or the faint light from the box scared off whatever it was, because it never came again, except on the one night when the system was switched off for some reason).  Maybe on this basis I don't need a camera, just something that makes a little noise and emits some light.

On a completely different topic, anybody who suggests that chopped bark over mypex makes a good surface for a path hasn't tried living with the results for any length of time.  I had this along the end of the house by the dustbins, and after a few years the bark has composted down and weeds grow in it freely.  I'm now having to pull up the weeds, and scrape up the rotted bark (which would be a jolly nice mulch if it weren't full of weed seeds).  I shall use stones instead.  In fact to start with I shall use all the stones I find while weeding that aren't especially attractive.  I found another today with a hole in it.  Only a small one, but every little helps.

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