snails

... look upon my garden gate's a snail ... that's what it is and I couldn't believe my eyes.  I was delighted to find that the garden here didn't support a population of slugs when I moved to the beach back in the early nineties.  Not sure why, close to the tidewater flats maybe, and who cared anyway?

On the east side under the garden room window a bed of orange day lilies that MJ's mother Ruth grew a decade before I showed up on the scene.  Around the corner on the south-facing beds had a thick growth of red-hot pokers.  A few iris scattered around that MJ called field flags.  Mow them down.

Before we started full-time work in MJ's junker business I always had landscape plans bubbling around my head, don't remember what all but the pokers were divided and moved to a temporary bed where they remain to this day. Once those darned things have taken root it is not easy to dig and move.  Still my favorite part of the garden and that's where I'm now looking at one of Donnivon's snails and I'm not even tripping on acid anymore.  Novelty for the first year or two, but it quickly became obvious the snails were eating the pokers and one snail visible at the edges of the bed had gosh only knows how many cousins lurking out of sight in the thick tangle of poker fronds.  MJ doesn't allow poison in her yard.

Two or three times a year I'd be out at first light,  gloves, and bucket harvesting snails.  Mono e mono.  Always a little conflict.  Birds and rabbits and spiders and any number of bugs, even wasps live at piece with me on this little plot of land, wouldn't even think of harvesting any of these, but the snails have to go?  Answer a definite yes for any number of years, truth is the last two decades are just a blur in my mind but I collected a lot of snails and the poker patch thrived.  

In summer, after the bloom, the plants make a nice soft border to that side of the yeard, stay green all winter and the high light of our entire year is the bloom. All May and into June the poker patch is the center of activity.  House finches, hummingbirds and bees work the blossoms until the last of them has dried and someone has to go out with the loppers and clear spent bloom spikes. 

Last year I didn't harvest a single snail.  Looking back it's easy to think their lives were saved due to a spiritual awakening that came along with a cancer diagnosis.  Truth is the cancer plus the drugs they have been keeping me alive has me feeling like crap and I just didn't feel like getting out that time of day and all of a sudden the summer had passed. Snails have free reign for a year and longer because we are cutting deep into this year and I'm just now getting around to snail control.

Disappointing bloom this year.  Twenty percent of the plants disappeared over the winter leaving bare patches deep with years of thatch that must be snail heaven.  I'm pretty much disabled these days, can't really do much in the garden. Doc suggested some PT and I'm hoping to regain some strength at least enough to keep up with some of the chores around the place.

As far as the war against the snails goes, I've instructed MJ that after I'm gone to scatter my ashes into the poker patch. Snails got the better of me in life, why not let them do away with my remains after passing.