The Elephant In The Room: Animals And Gardening

With gardening comes many challenges. One of these challenges are the animals that may pay your garden a visit. Keep in mind these tips while reading this collaborative post about The Elephant In The Room: Animals And Gardening.

Every gardener happily admits that, while they love wildlife – as it’s a mandatory interest when you’re into gardening – they are not too keen on leaving animals unsupervised in the garden.

Indeed, a gardener creates a decor that brings the best of nature to show, carefully arranging plants together to build colorful and exciting patches of vegetation. Whether you’re a weekend gardener who wants to plant pretty flowers, or whether you’re trying to grow your own vegetables, the last thing you want to see in your garden is an animal frolicking in the plants.

However, managing animals is an essential task of an enthusiastic plant-grower. Indeed, as you bring a little bit of nature into your home, you need to accept that it might appeal to the living creatures around you. Does it mean you have to give up on your dreams of building the perfect cottage garden? No, certainly not. But you need to be smart about managing animals while gardening.

A Robin in the Garden

Thinking About Wildlife in Ways You Didn’t Expect

Let’s discuss the first and most important aspect of wildlife: It follows a life cycle. The sweet little birds you see drinking in your garden pond over the summer , can become prays for mid-size predator over the winter. Foxes, raccoons, and opossums can come into your garden in an attempt to find food, namely by killing birds. You can deter them with high fences that dig into the ground. Similarly, you also need to know how to dispose of the dead animals you might find, such as preys that have not been eaten or even a dead deer carcass that has wandered into your garden after taking a considerable hit. Unfortunately, when you create a natural oasis, it attracts both living and dead animals.

The Animals You Don’t Want in the Garden

Some animals come to your garden for territorial purposes. Cats, for instance, tend to use their neighborhood gardens as a giant litter box as it’s a way of marking the place as theirs. The last thing you want is your efforts to be wasted by the foul smell in the garden. You can find ways to deter cats, such as placing a chicken wire above your veg beg, for instance, as cats don’t like walking on those. But if you don’t want to cover your cover in wires, you can use a motion-activated sprinkler instead. Be careful though; a sprinkler can prove expensive if you need to cover a large surface!

Planning for Your Own Pets

Last, but not least, if you have a pet yourself, you want to make sure that your furry friend will be safe in the garden. You can train your dog to stick to a few authorized areas, which will keep your flowers and vegetables safe from muddy paws! You should add a solid fence that keeps your dog in the garden and avoids distractions from the outside. Additionally, you might need to invest in only dog-friendly plants, which can limit your choices and decor – however lavender and geraniums are permitted.

As a plant lover, you need to make room for nature in your garden. From your pets to wildlife animals, your garden welcomes a variety of species who come there to live, eat, sleep and die. Your role as a gardener is also to manage their presence as safely as you can.

What do you do to keep unwanted animals out of your garden? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!