After three unsuccessful attempts at turning my half whiskey barrel into a gold fish/water plant "pond" and wasting probably $30 on liner material and pond sealant, (I know NOW I could have gotten the hard plastic one made just for 1/2 barrels for less) I gave up and made it a container garden.
Very pretty combo. I don't garden in containers except for a few hostas under my walnut trees and some Japanese Maples but they really aren't container gardens.
Been there, done that ! LOL
I don't have room for containers except hanging ones. I tried the whiskey barrell pond thing, and all I got was every raccoon and cat from miles around foraging through it.
Ponds and other water features here are a major raccoon magnet.
My boss has a pond and has to cover it all year long to keep the raccoons out...it looks horrible with all that netting over it all the time.
JD, suggest that he try fishing line crossed around the edges. I've seen posts on DG that say it works for egrets and heron, so perhaps it would work for raccoons. JAT
Good idea ! I'll definitely tell him.
Thanks !
Nope, fishing line won't work for raccoons at all!!!! I promise you first hand knowledge!!!
We had a nice bird netting contraption that I made several years ago. I made it with pvc pipe and bird netting attached to it. It worked fine for the herons and our beautiful koi were safe for a long time.
Then one morning my DH went out to feed the fish and discovered the netting torn apart and all 5 large koi were scattered all over the yard in pieces. :-( Now we just keep feeder fish in there and when the heron come, then get well fed....isn't that what feeder fish are for? lol
Heavy fishing line is much sturdier than bird netting, though, Donna. Did you ever try that? Are they so dexterous they could walk on wire spaced far enough apart? Little devils! We've never seen coons around here, just possum, but I would be surprised if we didn't have some around. I think our fish survive because the pond is so deep they can hide.
My best luck with raccoons was by accident---We were having a TERRIBLE time with them snagging our koi. We'd come out in the morning and just find leftover parts lying on the sidewalk. We were about to net the pond, but hadn't found the right kind of net or supports yet.
We wanted some decorative lights in our grapevines, which are about 10 feet away from the pond bed, and the only "spares" we had were twinkly Christmas lights. We put them below the level of the fence so they wouldn't annoy the neighbors (if only they were so considerate of us----but I digress). We hadn't gotten a timer at the time, so for several days, the lights were on all night. Suddenly there was an end to raccoon raids!
Thrilled with the unintended success, I was ready to string more around the pond and put them on a motion detector and/or timer, but they've never come back. We replaced the twinkly lights with steady ones after about a year. I read later that raccoons can't handle flashing lights, as it interferes with their night vision.
They're definitely still in the neighborhood, as I've seen them many times when I'm up for a walk before sunrise. But I never find pawprints any more in our yard, and the koi haven't been bothered by them for over 5 years.
Might be worth a try......
Ima,
Wow, what a great find that was. I will have to tell my DH about this and maybe put some up nearby our pond at night. Thanks for sharing that info with us.
Donna
Let me see if I can now UN-hijack DesertPirate's thread (these things sometimes take on a life of their own, don't they?)
Here's one of my favorite container combos: Dwarf Variegated Solomon's Seal with a variegated ivy:
And on the opposite side of the front steps, I have a clivia (blooming for the first time!) with a different variegated ivy:
I don't know what I'm doing wrong but my Clivia just don't want to bloom. Yours are beautiful though, imapigeon.
And I love that Solomon's Seal. Is that a Sago behind it??
This message was edited Apr 26, 2009 2:42 PM
This is the first time this clivia's bloomed, and I've had it for years. I think the secret is to ignore them. There's an abandoned building near my office that has a whole bed of them that bloom like crazy! They don't seem to like a lot of water, and they MUST have good drainage. It seems much happier since I put the ivy in last year, oddly enough. Maybe the ivy sucks up most of the water? I just put the ivy in because I was so sick of looking at the clivia's leaves year after year...LOL!
Yes, that's a little sago that I've had in about a 4-gallon pot for about 5 years. So far, so good!
Oh yeah. I love a nice full Sago like that one. It seems to be quite happy.
This isn't a container specimen, but it's the first blossom of the year on my Japanese honeysuckle.
Love that Solomon's Seal, Ima.
