I've never had any snakes at my pond, although occassionally I have one in my front yard. (My ponds are in the back) I also do not have a lot of stones around the edge, so I think it may be because there arent many hiding spaces and rock crevices.
Show Us Your Water Gardens ....Big Or Small We Love Them All
I agree MM, they LOVE rocks, and especially rock piles. Cut down or eliminate on the rock work and you'll reduce snake habitat. There are a ton of ponders on DG. I've never heard one report of an actual problem caused by a snake. They really don't want anything to do with humans and are gone in a flash if you spot one. For some odd reason, in my suburban back yard, the welcome sign is apparently out.
Hi, I've been lurking on this thread for some time. Jeri I had to laugh about your "crazy peacock". I didn't know there was any other kind. I've never had one, but I lived about a half a mile from somebody who had one. That was close enough.
We have a small pond and have never seen anything but grass snakes in our yard, which btw I am honored to have. We have quite a lot of rock that we use to line our beds and put around the pond. We have 3 cats who are too lazy to catch their own tails most of the time. In contrast my neighbor across the street has feral cats in and out of her yard all the time and also seeds lots of coral snakes in her yard. Go figure.
Snakes need warmth to digest their food. Which is why they like rocks or concrete. I find snakes all the time in my yard, especially right on the concrete sunning themselves next to my front door. The warm concrete attracts them like crazy here. Always a surprise to open the door and see a snake curled up there. I usually see black racers and other non-venomous snakes. I love seeing the snakes. And I've had some pretty funny Kodak moments with snakes.
Here is a corn snake actually slithering zig-zag down the brick exterior wall of my house:
http://davesgarden.com/community/blogs/i/50010/
And here is a photo of a snake on the exterior window sill of my house with my cat looking at it from inside the window. Cracks me up what these snakes do!
http://davesgarden.com/community/blogs/i/50006/
This message was edited Nov 18, 2008 11:29 PM
Those are GREAT shots. You're a good soul to appreciate those snakes. Not everybody can do that.
I have learned to love snakes because of my daughter...
When she was 4 years old, we took her to a pet store to get her a mouse, hamster, gerbil, or some cute little furry pet for her birthday. Well, she saw some baby corn snakes and begged and begged us for 2! We finally gave in. Kept the snakes for about a year until they just got too big. I hated feeding them live mice. Ugh! That really freaked me out, but my daughter was fascinated with all of it. Being so young and sometimes a little irresponsible ... she would carry one around the house and then put it down to play with a toy ... well, you guessed it! The snake would slither off and we couldn't find it for days. Now the really funny part ... my dh is scared to death of snakes and was not happy when she would lose a snake in the house. He couldn't sleep at night worrying that a snake was going to slither up in bed right next to him because they like warmth. LOL! Fortunately, neither of the snakes ever did. And we'd always find them when they got hungry and came out of wherever they were hiding. My daughter could snatch them up faster than I'd see them! LOL! Needless to say ... my dh was sooooo HAPPY when we gave the snakes away. :)
This message was edited Nov 18, 2008 11:38 PM
Kids can sure give you an education! Your DH gets a star for courage. I grew up with snakes. We lived on a lake. If you were afraid you might as well have stayed in the house permanently. They were everywhere. My brother and I never learned to be afraid and our parents would not let us harm any wildlife. So they were just there. No problem. We let them be. Now as an adult I can appreciate how lucky we were to have had that experience. Your daughter is equally as lucky. You have given her a gift.
snapple - Soooo true! :-) :-) :-)
The black racers (2nd picture) took me a while to get use to when I first moved to Florida. I had an 8 foot timber in the back yard of my old house, and he was just about the lenght of the timber. Wow...I was use to garter snakes that were only a foot long! I've never seen another one that long, but see the 4 footers quite often. I don't mind, as long as I know they're there, I just don't want to be startled by them.
I was convinced I was safe as long as I made plenty of noise and this does work but it's the vibration that is making them leave. Snakes can't hear you b/c they have no ears. A friend of mine took great pleasure telling that!!!!
Thanks for asking us to post pics of our ponds Judy!
Ours is only about 3 months old. Just a few plants because of the winter season. Hope to get more next Spring.
What beautiful ponds are posted! I love to look at the various plants and designs :-)
Eirlys
Chiefland, Florida
