Photos: House Yard

[ysabetwordsmith]

I took some pictures around the yard today.  These are from the house yard.


This is the forest garden with birdfeeders. A young fox squirrel is sitting on the hopper feeder.




A young fox squirrel is sitting on top of the feeder. You can see that the bushy tail hasn't finished growing in yet.




A young fox squirrel hangs on the hopper feeder. You can see how small it is because an adult squirrel's head would be well below the feeder in this position.




These are my new plant stands. On the left, the tall folding stand has 3 shelves. In the stack, there are 3 white ones (one taller than the others) and 2 black ones (also the short size). They don't look like much yet, but it will be fun to fill them up!




This is the old picnic table.




Shithouse Marigolds are sprouting in this oval pot on the old picnic table.




The big blue pot has petunias blooming.




Two of the trough pots have herbs. The one in the middle is a water garden. I'm hoping to find some oxygenating plants for it.




Hot Pink Torenia is blooming.




Here you can see black petunias (lower left) and black pansy (upper left) blooming.




These are the strawberry towers that I recently assembled and planted with 36 wild strawberries. There are 12 stacking pots. Each is a cloverleaf with three planting pockets. The strawberries look sad and wilted right after transplanting, but that's normal. Most should survive. I just need to water them generously until they establish new roots and perk up.




Under the fly-through birdfeeder, one of the hot pink peonies that I planted last year is about to bloom. By evening the first few petals were popping open!




Lily of the valley is blooming at the northeast corner of the house.




I caught this male cardinal near the parking lot.

Comments

[cmcmck]

The fox squirrel looks more like our native reds than your greys do.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

People often refer to fox squirrels as red squirrels, even though they're not. I think it's the comparison with gray squirrels. If you look at the belly, gray squirrels are white and fox squirrels are nearly orange.

Re: Thoughts

[full_metal_ox]

Conversely, gray foxes can resemble huge squirrels, particularly when they’re climbing trees.

Re: Thoughts

[cmcmck]

Some idiot introduced greys here in the UK in the 19th century and our native reds have been in retreat ever since- trouble is that they're about a third of the size of American greys and the greys are bullies.

Re: Thoughts

[full_metal_ox]

It’s okay; you can just say the 11th Duke of Bedford.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Alas! That's not a good situation at all.

If you could get the legalities lined up, there's always the eat 'em to beat 'em option. Squirrel is delicious -- and the two species are not easily confused.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

*laugh* OMG they totally do! They're like giant, carnivorous gray squirrels! :D

Re: Thoughts

[full_metal_ox]

A family of gray foxes treating a wooded Central Texas backyard as their jungle gym:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aa27i1dkS9w

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

That is so adorable! :D Freerunning foxes.

[shirebound]

Thanks for sharing! We only have gray squirrels here, so it's a treat to see a different kind.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

My locale has both fox and ground squirrels, but my own yard only has fox squirrels as an established population. Once in a while we get a gray squirrel, but so far not a breeding pair. This past fall a young gray squirrel appeared briefly, but then disappeared, so I suspect something ate it.

[puddleshark]

Lovely!

Those stacking pots are ingenious. I want some! 😊

[full_metal_ox]

And “Strawberry Towers” sounds like a hippie apartment complex.

[magid]

That's the apartment complex next to Strawberry Fields (which go on forever)? :-)

[full_metal_ox]

And conveniently near the beach at Hanalee?

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Finite urban berry farm, but noted as adjacent to the apartments.

Done!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Saved for use in my Rutledge thread.

[puddleshark]

LOL

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

You can find sturdy ones at a premium price in some garden stores.

I got these cheap at Family Dollar. They are flimsier but they stack well.

https://www.familydollar.com/outdoors-by-design-vertical-stackable-plastic-3-section-planters/FD3498284

[yourlibrarian]

Aw, squirrel shenanigans. And those cardinals are such a pop of color.

[turlough]

That squirrel looks very like the red ones we have here in Sweden. They're so cute when they're eating on something they hold in their front paws.

Good luck with all your plants!

You already have peonies in buds, I'm so envious!

We do have lilies-of-the-valley in bloom though.