one might suggest the animals love it..

and hate you...lol

ken

Yea, sounds like the animals love it and you hate the animals for loving it :0p

You could put a chicken wire cage around it or spray it with one of the critter deterrent sprays to see if that helps.

What's weird is that they don't eat it. They rip it up and leave the dead leaves lying around. I can understand if they want to eat it, but destroying it is a little strange. They also left the poppies untouched.

I notice the squirrels like to destroy my lilies, so I have to put chicken wire around it. Just like the issue with Hepatica, they don't eat it, but just destroy it. Now my garden look more like a prison.

Paul

I thought of this post when I was watching some kind of black-type bird (maybe a starling?) in my garden this morning. He was walking around in a patch of violas simply shredding the flowers and tossing 'em up in the air. Petals were flying everywhere. I've noticed this kind of behavior from these birds before, but usually when they walk through the garden tossing up stray leaves and sticks as they look for food. They actually are quite funny to watch.

Maybe your problem is a bird looking for food?

Kevin