“Happiness held is the seed; Happiness shared is the flower.” ~John Harrigan
We built a fence this morning. Well, we put it together anyway. Some years ago after we built a room over our old cistern and added a deck to the house, my husband, sweet man that his is, decided to make me a flowerbed running along part of the deck. So, what wife is going to discourage that? Anyway he proceeded with his plan by making some boxlike barriers and then hauled richer dirt from the farm to make a raised flowerbed. And I planted varioius kinds of flowers.
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” ~Audrey Hepburn
It was fun going to the flower centers and trying to imagine which flower would look best where. It isn’t a big flower garden, but it took a good mixture of flower plants to fill it up. It doesn’t get a lot of sun so I had to keep that in mind while I was flower shopping. But each year since Darrell made the bed for the flowers, I’ve enjoyed going into those flower filled spaces and deciding which flowers or plants I want to put in my little flowerbed.
“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.” ~Luther Burbank
This went along well through the years when I had Oscar as my best dog. He never had even a fleeting thought of digging in my flowers. He just didn’t do that sort of thing, but then he got bone cancer and crossed over the rainbow bridge.
Enter Frankie. Not exactly a best behaved dog and still mostly a pup. Or as my daughter said, a teenage dog. Teenagers can go through some interesting phases. Still, he did mostly okay with leaving my flowers alone for a little while. Then I kept my son’s dogs for a few weeks, and one of them thought the flowers made a nice bed for him. So I put up a little wire fence that discouraged that.
But alas, chipmunks moved into my backyard. Frankie has a strong hunting urge and chipmunks seemed to be the most exciting thing around. But chipmunks can scurry away fast and one of the places they liked to scurry was through my flowers and under the deck to safety. Frankie in full prey chasing mode wasn’t bothered by a little wire fence that he could hop over easilty to chase those chipmunks. So, I added a little to the top of the fence and stuck sticks down in it here and there to keep Frankie from jumping it. By now the fence was looking anything but cute. The flowers were still pretty, but the fence looked worse than a junkyard fence.
So, this year, I decided to go shopping for a fence that would protect my flowers from chipmunk crazed dogs and look good. We put up the fence this morning. It was very hot. My husband was probably wishing he’d never had the bright idea of making this flowerbed for me, but if so, he didn’t say so out loud. We got it done with the help of some zip ties.
I think it will keep Frankie out although the chipmunks will still have plenty of ways to slip through it. The only problem is that I’ll have to figure out how I can get through the fence to pull weeds. But that’s a worry for another day. Since I pulled all the weeds before we put up the fence, it won’t need weeding again for a while. Until then I can enjoy the pretty fence around my pretty flowers and the chipmunks can sit inside the fence and make faces at Frankie and Marley.
Do you love planting flowers? Ever have trouble keeping the animals from messing up those flowers?
Comments 12
Your flowers and fence are really pretty! My dog is older now so is not as destructive and she used to be with her digging. But, one of her favorite things to chase are the little lizards you seeing scooting around a porch or steps. I have one on my front porch, so there are digging holes wherever the lizard decides to hide. I do have some daffodil bulbs planted there, and sometimes I see them on top of the ground, but soon they get buried again either by her digging again or it raining. They sometimes come up in the spring in different places. Most of my really special flowers are in containers on my back porch, she leaves them alone, thank goodness!
I have a hint for you. Don’t ever use bone meal as a fertilizer for bulbs when you are planting them if you have dogs. We had a dog once, he was playing in the yard while I planted bulbs, with bone meal. I happened to look behind me and he was digging the bulbs up faster than I could put them in the hole. He thought I was burying him some bones!
Author
That’s funny, Connie. I guess your dog wondered why you didn’t just give him the bones without making him dig them up. LOL. It’s good that daffodils are so hardy that they don’t mind being dug up and replanted. And good you have those best flowers in pots to protect them from your dog so that you can enjoy them.
Your garden and fence are beautiful! I love flowers but my mother forgot to pass her green thumb down to me. The only flowers I have are the ones the Good Lord grows every spring for me…Easter lilies, crocuses, tulips, hydrangeas and day lilies. I only have to take care of the weeds that sprout up. Ollie never digs, and since all my neighbors love him, we took down all the fences. The neighbors on both sides have fabulous green thumbs, so my little front yard border garden is sort of a bridge between their gorgeous flower-filled yards. But I have some bird feeders, so I also have colorful birds. And my backyard has flowering trees in the spring. I sure love living in the country where color blooms everywhere.
Author
All that sounds like the best, Lavon. Especially having neighbors who love your dog and make fences unnecessary. The flowers that come up on their own every year and bless us with their beauty are the best. Sounds as if you have a beautiful yard and a beautiful place to live.
That looks so pretty, we always had a big flower and vegetable garden, but after my husband became ill and passed it got to be too much for me to take care of so now it is grass. I still miss seeing it out of my kitchen window. Hope the fence solves the doggie problem and you can enjoy it.
Author
My little flowerbed isn’t very big, but I enjoy seeing it and sometimes being surprised by the flowers that show up in it. I have this one flower that comes up every year that I never remember planting. If must have been in a flower I bought and decided to stick around. Sometimes it comes up so thick I have to weed it out. I do think the fence will solve the Frankie problem. Don’t know how to solve the chipmunk problem. My neighbors say to get a cat, but then Frankie wouldn’t like a cat any better than the chipmunks.
I love your flower garden and the fence looks great! I do love planting flowers but haven’t done so the last few years. However I still have some perennials that come up. My dog is an 11 pound Morkie (Maltese and Yorkie) that loves to lay in the flower bed and crush whatever she lays on. Also have issue with moles in that area so my sister’s 100 pound dog likes to dig for them in that same flower bed. Oh well, maybe I should just try pots instead. Have a great rest of your week!
Author
I know what you mean about sometimes it doesn’t seem worth the effort to try to plant anything, Pamela. Frankie love digging for moles too, but the moles haven’t been in that little flowerbed — yet. If so, I might let Frankie in to dig them out. LOL. I have trouble with pots too. Seems toads love burrowing in my pots. I gave up on one of the pots this year and let the toad have it.
Your new fence looks great! I love flowers but sometimes you have to watch the chipmunks because they have dug up some of ours over the years. We have gladiolas and sunflowers planted in pots around our one flower bed this year. We used to plant them in the ground every spring but that gets to be a lot of work to plant them and then dig them out in the fall, so now we just let them in pots to grow and it has worked well the last few years. My Easter Lillies are full of flowers now. A little late with the strange weather we have had this year.
I am imagining those chipmunks safe behind that fence making faces at your dogs and thinking of Chip and Dale laughing at Pluto from the old Disney cartoons! 🙂
Author
I love gladiolas and sunflowers, Hope. I actually have some volunteer glads that came up in my flowerbed. I know I must have had the bulbs in there at some time, but don’t remember planting them where they came up this year. Maybe the chipmunks relocated them. LOL> But one of them is blooming and it’s beautiful. I think there are two more that are going to bloom. Made me think that next year maybe I shoudl buy gladiola bulbs to plant. One time I planted some in a row in the garden and enjoyed cutting them for bouquets in the house. I do have a few sunflowers in the garden this year but they hav ebeen slow to grow.
Your fence is very pretty. I like it! And, the flowers are looking gorgeous. Yes, we do have problems with deer. They are an ongoing battle, but we don’t give up.
Author
I like how you say your don’t give up, Kim. We had to put up a fence around our garden to keep out the deer. A tall fence. It doesn’t look too pretty but so far it’s kept the deer out.