I went out into the garden very early on Friday morning and found a beautiful box turtle on one of the paths.  We know each other.  At least two of these beautiful turtles frequent our yard and it isn’t unusual to find one or the other or both of them.  Often, they are well-hidden in some tall foliage, and sometimes I find them on the patio on a hot, summer day, looking for a drink.

I thought it a little odd to find this little guy with his head and neck fully extended.  He just patiently waited until I passed, dumped out the coffee grounds I was carrying, and them passed a second time.  It was only later, looking back at his portrait, that I realized that he was perfectly lined up to have a bite of the Canna leaf he was admiring.  He just waited until I wasn’t watching him.

Turtles are omnivores, and I like to imagine they eat mostly insects.  But this little turtle studying the Canna leaf offers a clue to an ongoing garden mystery.  Thus far three of the little Christmas ferns I planted back in March and April have been shredded and their roots dug up.  What would do that?

It’s not unusual to find evidence of deer grazing a leaf here and there, but they rarely touch a fern.  Christmas ferns have such tough, leathery leaves that they aren’t the first choice for any of the animals who visit us.  We have rabbits, but they normally dine on clover and grasses.  This is the first time I’ve found new plants dug and their roots shredded.  I’ve been trying to figure out who has been attacking the ferns, and now two newly planted Aquilegia plants, too.

One of the little columbine starts has maybe a 60% chance of surviving.  It looked rather dry and was already browning when I discovered it sadly hanging out of its planting hole, only a few roots still in the Earth.  I pushed it back in place, covered its roots, watered it in, and am hoping for the best.  The other Aquilegia was attacked Thursday night. It was lightly grazed, and I found a deep hole beside its root ball while I was visiting with the turtle on Friday morning.  What are the chances that the turtle is both nibbling and digging?

There is far more grazing and damage to plants than is usual this early in the season.  It may be that our dry weather is forcing herbivores to find moisture where they can.  The bowl of water I set out on the patio for the birds, turtles, skinks, squirrels, and rabbits is generally close to empty by the end of the day.  I have been filling it twice a day, lately. 

A neighborhood friend wrote to me on Friday morning asking whether she could return most of the little redbud trees I gave her and her husband earlier this month.  She was upset that several leaves had been grazed already, and the rooted Forsythia cutting I shared was gone entirely. Without a fence, all of the animals in the neighborhood have free range in her yard.  She kept the largest of the redbuds and plans to put a cage around it.  I totally understand.  Redbud, Cercis canadensis, is one of those ‘safe,’ ‘deer resistant’ trees that deer normally ignore. But even my mature redbuds are missing some leaves as high up as the does can reach them, this month.  ‘Normal’ has flown out of the window.

It is very dry in parts of Virginia this June.  I read an article in the Washington Post about the drought in Northern Virginia that has grown so bad, the Potomac River is much lower than usual for June, and the drinking water has developed an ‘off’ taste from the algae in the river.  Low moisture content in the soil has begun to affect crops.  We have water restrictions here, but at least our rivers are flowing just fine.  And we’ve had some wonderful rain this week, with more in the forecast.    

I found two of my favorite Hydrangea shrubs brutalized on Monday, with missing leaves and broken branches.  I’ve been using Plantskydd and Repels-All faithfully to try to protect them, but piles of deer droppings tell the tale.  I neatened them up, making clean cuts below the jagged gnawing on some branches, and salvaged what I could of the broken branches that were left. 

One of the cuttings, new growth this year, is sitting happily in a jar of water in my kitchen window.  And it looks like roots are forming along the lower stem.  I’ll be so pleased if this Hydrangea will root in water.  Other cuttings, with older wood, I’ve stuck into moist soil in containers in hopes that perhaps they will root, too.  We’ll see what they do.

I have good luck, usually, with Hydrangea cuttings.  Most types root easily.  The trick is getting the young plants to survive long enough to grow beyond the reach of grazing deer.  Hydrangea seems to be a favorite of our herd, for some reason.

That is the thing with deer.  They are very smart.  But they don’t read.  They have no idea which plants are the ‘deer resistant’ plants they are supposed to leave alone.  And a product that repels them for a time will just stop bothering them after a while. 

I’ve spent time chasing deer out of the yard every day this week. They have been nibbling all sorts of things that they should be leaving alone, even prickly holly leaves!  I’ve tried nearly every trick on the list of how to deter deer.  They are like ghosts, slipping through our fences and eluding our best efforts to thwart them. 

Now that we’ve finally had some rain, I look forward to seeing our garden repair the critter damage and really grow into its summer beauty.  The first Rose of Sharon flowers opened this week, and the bees have been happily buzzing around them. We have Crinum lilies ready to bloom, and the butterfly bushes opened their first blossoms of the season yesterday.  I found the Gardenias magically in bloom on Monday, and the lower garden is filled with their perfume. More and more leaves keep opening on the Caladiums, and the Lantana has finally taken off and produced a few flowers.  And I’m thrilled to watch our patches of moss continue to expand a bit more each week, as they fill in and grow lush.

Jim suggested a wonderful book to me in last week’s comments, and I have been thoroughly enjoying The Lost Rainforests of Britain by Guy Shrubsole.  I had no idea that much of the British Isles once were covered in temperate rainforests, and that remnants of those ancient woods remain today.  There are efforts underway to not only conserve these remnants, but to replant areas that have been de-forested for centuries with the tree and fern species indigenous to the area.  And of course, many animal species will follow to live in this new habitat.

Trees in rainforests support many additional species of mosses, ferns, vines, lichens, and fungi, which makes them a tremendous resource for filtering the air and sequestering carbon.  Trees also return huge quantities of water to the atmosphere, soaking it up through their roots, and then releasing water vapor from every leaf. 

Planting and caring for trees improves the ecosystem in countless ways, but especially by helping to regulate the water cycle.  When forests are destroyed, the atmosphere holds more carbon, nitrogen and air-borne pollutants.  Trees filter and sequester these while producing oxygen.  But the atmosphere also grows drier, because trees aren’t returning water vapor to the air.  Trees, and particularly rain forests, are an important component for improving our planet’s atmosphere and potentially reversing our climate challenges.  They are functional as well as beautiful. 

We don’t have enough precipitation here in coastal Virginia to support a rainforest perhaps, but we have enough to support trees, shrubs, mosses and ferns. I guess I will just have to plant enough of them to grow, and to support the critters, too.   Tough work, maybe, but somebody gets to do it. 

Happy Gardening this week!  And Happy (almost) Summer Solstice!

With appreciation to Jim Stephens of Garden Ruminations, who hosts Six on Saturday each week.

You might enjoy my new series of posts, Plants I Love That Deer Ignore.

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