Gardening with Animals
By Ken Lain, The Garden Guy

With the Memorial Day weekend behind us the gardening season is off to a roaring start for all mountain gardeners. To kick off the season, I’m challenging my readers to a “race” and want you to let me know if you cross the “finish line” before I do. My personal goal is to pick the very first tomato in the area, and I'm close to achieving my objective. I predict my first tomato will be picked within a couple of weeks and will announce that date in this column. I hope readers will let me know if you and your tomatoes “beat me to the pick”.

I also have small crookneck squashes forming, dozens of spicy peppers, and other juicy vegetables heading to maturity. This annual gardening experience is as exciting to me as it was last year and the year before and the year before and the………….

There is nothing like ripe green beans freshly picked from the garden and to that end I just put my pole beans into the ground this week. If you haven't planted your vegetable garden it's not too late, but you’d best get to steppin’! Most summer vegetables should be in the ground by the second week in June. After that garden centers will begin running out of inventory with the possible exception of their mature plant sizes.

Now, let’s get on to animals and gardens. Javalinas, deer, squirrels, pack rats, and rabbits are just a few of the animals we contend with when surrounded by national forest, and every year they seem to become bolder. I still contend that, if you truly want to garden without interference from vermin, you must put up a fence. Even a single 12-volt wire strung just 10 inches off the ground will keep critters away. With that being said, you’ll be glad to know there are some plants animals tend to leave alone.

There are certain characteristics to every animal-resistive plant. Animals don't care for plants with strong scents and/or heavy oils. Rarely will rosemary, lavender, oregano, bee balm, culinary sage, geranium, marigold, red autumn sage, junipers, mint, Russian sage, salvias and most other herbs in the garden be destroyed by vermin. Animals don't care for either the smell or the taste of these herbal delights.

Another plant characteristic animals don't fancy is fuzzy leaves. These hairy defense mechanisms are meant to protect the plant not only from animals, but also from sunscald. Classic examples are the butterfly bush, lambs’ ears, dusty miller, echinacea, gaillardia, yarrow, silver mound salvia, and even cucumbers and eggplant.
Animals are not unlike people when it comes to their food. They like the most tender, succulent, tastiest plants in the landscape and will bypass tough old plants that take more energy to chew. Plants too tough for critters to bother with in local landscapes are cotoneaster, red hot poker, pampas grass, English ivy, silver lace vine, lantana, juniper, cypress, barberry, Oregon grape, viburnum, yucca, mugho pine, pyracantha, and spruce or fir trees.

Most of us folks will pass on a dish that we're not familiar with, that looks funny, or has a bad smell. Well, some plants just have a down right bad taste, and animals will pass on these plants no matter how good they look in the landscape. This long list of plants includes iris, daffodil, serviceberry tree, chrysanthemum, aster, boxwood, bleeding heart, coreopsis, columbine, yew, spirea, rose of Sharon, daisy, snapdragon, forsythia, vinca, ajuga, lilac, nandina, akebia, dahlia, daylily, hen and chicks, potentilla, purple leaf plum, Virginia creeper, and wisteria. I'm sure there are more, but this is part of the list that comes to mind.

Garden centers are responding to customers’ frequent requests to know which plants won't be destroyed by animals. My center’s latest sign program has icons indicating which plants do not invite decimation by animals. To get complete listings of vermin resistive plants for mountain gardens visit my center and ask for my javalina and deer & rabbit resistive plant lists.

I’m closing with your invitation to the garden event of the summer. On Sunday June 28th Prescott Frontier Rotary will host its 4th annual wine tasting to raise money for local math and reading clinics. The event will be from 5-8pm in the gardens and greenhouses at Watters. There will be lots of refreshments, fine wines, great food, entertainment, and many auction items. It’s just $45 to attend, and all moneys go directly to the clinics. Tickets are on sale at the downtown Prescott Chamber of Commerce, at Watters Garden Center, and the Prescott location of Olsen's Grain. I hope that you will help me generate support for this very worthy cause and join us for this garden of fun.

Until next week, I’ll see you in the garden center.

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