Cavan Reflections

By: Anne Corke

Jun 25 2011

Tags: coneflowers, Lakeland terrier

Category: Gardening

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Today a small rodent burrowed through my lovely cedar mulch and dug an entrance tunnel to his underground boudoir in my coneflower bed. And, of course, my extraordinary hunting dog, Sophie, found the tunnel and took it upon herself to exterminate this intruder. Unfortunately as she charged through the garden in hot pursuit, one of my coneflowers suffered serious damage. I think it will survive, but only if I can manage to remove the intruder. I’ll set the trap in the compost area (the main attraction for rodents!) tomorrow, but for now I have placed a big rock over the hole, in a vain attempt to dissuade him from using my garden as his driveway! I am seriously considering a small tomato cage around the wounded plant to protect it should another chase ensue. It seems the coneflower stems are not as flexible as the daylilies. Luckily the daylilies tolerate her hunting forays remarkably well. In the large bed in the backyard, the foliage of more than forty daylilies forms an almost impenetrable thicket of strappy green leaves. Sophie loves to weave through this doggy equivalent of the Amazon rainforest. And often the only way you can locate her in the summer time is to watch for waving foliage in the daylily bed. And speaking of the daylilies, the early ones are putting up scapes. The first to bloom in this garden is the small, but delightful, Itsy Bitsy Spider, bright yellow flowers waving in the sunshine. What it lacks in size of bloom, it makes up for in quantity. There must be at least forty scapes on the plant with five of six buds on each, creating an impressive display for such a relatively small plant. Stay tuned for further updates as peak bloom time approaches. In the meantime, I will try to nurse my poor coneflower back to health!

Copyright 2011 Anne Corke