Gardening Despite Wildlife!

Recently I was very happy to be invited to do a guest post on Beautiful Wildlife Garden, which I invite you to view - Gardening With Wildlife. It was a fairly serene post about gardening WITH rather than FOR wildlife - which happens when you live in the home of said wildlife.

But yesterday I didn't feel so serene.

Here's a photo taken about three days ago. I was so happy because this silver bush lupine was growing so lushly it was escaping its cage.


This was The Cutting That Wouldn't Die - it survived the great storm that destroyed my first "ductape greenhouse" and it eventually thrived (throve?) and I was so happy to put it in the garden. I loved its determination.

But yesterday when I did a tour of my domain - ACK!!!

GONE! Totally gone, not even a stump! There is a root though. Something ate it from above.

Well, we'll see if it ever comes back from the root - but I doubt it.

I'll keep checking though.

And just the day before, I noticed the other lupine I planted nearby - the mystery green bush lupine - was looking kinda yellow:

This one had been eaten from below (bit hard to see maybe):


Oh - wailing and lamentations and gnashing of teeth! - why oh why didn't I put a gopher cage below?? I thought only of the slugs (sharp gravel) and the rabbits (wire around) and not the gophers! How could I be so lazy and remiss! I tucked it back into the soil with a wish and a prayer, but again, not much hope here.

However - to end on a happy note - I was watering around the place a couple weeks ago, and in the lupine seed tray that I had long abandoned thinking nothing was going to sprout there - ten healthy little seedlings! I potted them into tall 4 inch pots and they are doing fine in the greenhouse. Anyone know what kind of lupines these are? If they survive long enough to flower, then maybe it'll be easier to tell. I gathered the seed locally.

But of course the burning question is - where to plant them?!