Pretty flowers and a summer villain

The bad news, or bad photos come first! We have been plagued for the last two months or so by a pesky, no, really NASTY, ground hog which lives under our baby barn and LOVES to eat pretty garden flowers. Here are the hollyhocks and petunias (or lack thereof) AFTER Mr. GH has done his nasty nibbling! We have tried several things to rid our garden of this pest, none of which have worked! Why in the world would he want to crawl into a little wire trap with bait in it when he can munch on tasty petunias? They are obviously his favorites! Actually it got worse after this pic. He discovered that the new hollyhock leaves are to his liking too! So the new, round and healthy looking hollyhock leaves are also gone. He routinely keeps the petunia blossoms trimmed off. I have thought of pulling the plants up out of spite, but then he would probably discover that there are more petunias in other places. Shhhh! Don't tell him! I am hoping we can solve our problem before he hibernates and comes back next spring with a big family to help him out. As you can tell, I am not fond of ground hogs!



I know, I know. Things have been very silent in Gail's Garden for a LONG time. It is time to catch up. Here are a few garden photos which were taken weeks ago.


The pink petunias have been attacked too. Before the attack they were much prettier than in this pic. Oh well, there is always next year...

These are like the petunias in the hollyhock garden were, except that these are much bigger now.

And this is the original hollyhock garden, before the petunias were REALLY PRETTY and also before the ground hog episode. You never know how your garden will grow!