Anyone who puts out food for wild birds quickly learns that the squirrel food alert network is very efficient. Within hours, often before the birds find your new feeders, the squirrels are on site, shoveling sunflower seeds into their mouths as fast as they can. That’s pretty fast.
Some people actually like squirrels. That’s fine with me. If they want to feed expensive seeds and nuts to squirrels, let them go right ahead. Of course, their largess will encourage the production of more squirrels….
On the other hand, most bird feeders want to feed birds, not rodents. Banging on the window and waving your arms may alarm the neighbors, but it won’t faze the squirrels for long. So what’s a frustrated bird lover to do?
Cold-resistant flowering cabbage takes the stage after tender annuals have succumbed to Fall’s first frosts. Flowering cabbage isn’t really a flower, but a loose head of large ruffled, fringed, or smooth leaves in vibrant combinations of cream rose, purple, and green. Although grown as an ornamental, flowering cabbage, also known as ornamental or flowering kale, is completely edible.
It was almost 5 am, well below freezing, and I was clumsily trying to attach my camera to my tripod with gloved fingers. The last of the stars had finally given way to the growing light in the eastern sky, but the sun wouldn’t be up for a while yet.
“Mom, can you fix it?”
“Don’t throw that away!”
As summer’s flowers fade, plants that produce berries take center stage. Branches covered with bright red berries make cotoneasters especially attractive now, but they offer year-round interest. In spring, tiny but abundant white to pink flowers may be obscured by the shiny round green leaves. Foliage turns orange-red in fall. Finally, the berries persist into winter, or until the birds pick them clean.
The hardest part of growing cotoneaster is pronouncing it correctly (it’s “ko-TON-ee-AS-ter”). These shrubs thrive with little attention, handling poor soils, full sun to afternoon shade, and moderately low amounts of water. New shrubs should be coddled a bit until vigorous growth begins. Give plants room to spread, pruning only to remove oldest wood and enhance appearance. As with all members of the rose family, cotoneasters are occasionally susceptible to fire blight; some new varieties are tolerant of this disease. The many different species in cultivation vary in hardiness. Most will survive zone 4 or 5 winters, but check the label for the variety you are purchasing.
Mountain Plover 