15 Montgomery Road
P. O. Box 186
Huntington, MA 01050
Ph: 413-667-5786
Katheryn Darrow

Experienced gardener available for Design, Installation, Restoration & Maintenance. I use hand tools and practice Soil-building, Integrated Pest Management, and Organic Gardening methods. No charge for first consultation.

Gardening With Wildlife

My neighbor almost cried. Seems that those expensive and much-anticipated lilies just budding out were chomped by an unknown creature during the night!   "I'll kill it!" she shrieked.

It's not just us HillTown gardeners who have the problem—suburbs and the larger towns do, too. It's still newsworthy when a bear ambles across the Noble Hospital parking lot, or a mother moose and her calf take their time about crossing Elm Street in Northampton. I saw a pair of turkeys stroll up the driveway and stop traffic on Montgomery Rd. We like to see them "out there" and remember that, after all—they got here first.

Reality speaks. They are a nuisance, maybe even dangerous. One friend had had enough when the bear climbed up to her kitchen window in broad daylight and paid no attention to the banging of pots and pans. She called up the Environmental Police to report the crime. "Lady," she heard at the other end of the line, slightly disgusted. "Why, don't you shoot it?" "I don't even have a gun! Can't you come out here (Blandford) and do it for me?" "Too busy." "Can I get someone else to shoot it for me?" "Not allowed."

Exasperated, she hung up, and continued to bang and yell. Finally, B'rer Bear left on his own accord, leaving behind the broken bush he had used as a stepstool.

These up-close encounters with wildlife give us a new dimension to enjoying our gardens. We can take the expensive precautions of deterring the pests with predator urine, fences, various sprays, or fancy electronic gadgets. Or we can practice the obvious: don' 't leave bird feeders out at night, remove garbage cans into enclosed garages with strong, locked doors, or invest in Hav-a-Heart traps and transport the varmints to someone else's backyard. “A full-time job,” you say? “Inconvenience?” Yes, it’s true. But think of it as a contest, not warfare. Mother Nature will win some days, and you will win other days.

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