rabbits are my GH nemesis ...

ken

The voles ate all the Muscari in the front garden along the sidewalk. Along with all but 1 or 2 Hyacinth and Crocus and most of the roots of the perennials up there too. :(

So I will fill try to fill in the area as needed. I just transplanted some Muscari from up near the house, so there will be a nice little drift of them along the sidewalk, per usual. They look really pretty with the little lemon yellow Narcissus (which the voles did NOT eat, from what I gather nothing eats Daffodils because the bulbs and foliage are poisonous). And a Sedum Autumn Joy and some Crocus so far too.

terrene - slugs and snails will eat daffodils. This year I have hardly any tete-a-tete flowers. Slugs climbed to the top of each stem and chewed off all the buds. They will eat the foliage but much prefer the blooms. Same for hyacinths and snowdrops.

I have pretty good luck using dried blood around plants that are currently being targeted. It's not cheap, but useful when you have special plants that you are trying to protect for a specific period of time.

I have pretty bad raccoon problems in my area, so dried blood may be bad.

My current other goal is to setup little hiding places for the nearby toad in hopes that they will keep my garden free of slugs.

Grape hyacinth (the ones that are trampled) seems to be doing well and are flowering. They look different than the ones that ware wild though.They are bigger.

Paul

Paul - I'm wondering what your 'wild' grape hyacinths are. They are not native to the US so are these actually Muscari or do you think are they naturalised garden escapes?

Terrene, just wait until narcissus bulb fly finds your garden. It will take care of your narcissus and snowdrops as well. So if you find some plants that look suspicious, dig them up and BURN!

You are right, I didn't realized grape hyacinths are not native plants. I see them growing wild in my yard occasionally. The ones that appear are 1/4 the size of the ones planted. They must have been escaped plants.

Paul

Flora and Weislaw, apparently you guys have more Narcissus pests in Europe! Nothing bothers them around here, not any critters or bugs, but then they aren't native to North America so maybe their pests didn't come over here with them. Occasionally I will even see an old stand of Daffs that have naturalized and are blooming somewhere in the woods or on the site of old homestead.

Well I just realized today that my beautiful big clumps of Hyacinthus hispanica were eaten by the d*mn vole too. I do have some smaller clumps that can be transplanted, but these were older plants and they put on such a great show.

All for nothing too, because the vole has left the front garden and I think the cat got it in the back yard. :-/

Terrene,

I'm glad you mentioned recent transplanting. We had big rain all day Friday and thunderstorm during the night. The
first lawnmowing is due Monday and I have about 10 clumps of gh which have meandered out into the grass. Usually I
bring them all back in the beds when they grow foliage in the early fall, but I'm going to emulate you and try it now. We're zone 5 also and have been having very warm weather until today when it's back in the low 60s.

Grandma Chris

Grandma, I started transplanting around the first day of Spring, bulbs and mostly perennials that are in beds around the foundation of the house, where it warms up fastest.

This year I actually planted 2 Amaryllis bulbs on the south side of the house even before Spring started! I was annoyed with them because they sent up only foliage this winter, and so they were banished outside, about 6 inches away from the foundation. With a little organic bulb fertilizer. I am not worried about frost because the foundation is warm and prevents frost from reaching that close to the house. They are actually doing quite well, but it's been dry, so I water them pretty regularly. Maybe I can bring them in and they will bloom next winter.