I love to work in my yard. I enjoy the results - the flowers, the tomatoes, the healthy shrubs and trees! However in my little corner of the earth - "Steeler Land" (surburban Pittsburgh) there is a HUGE problem with gardens! O, it's not with the plants and what they grow. It's with the deer that are literally EVERYWHERE who spend their insomniac lives slithering through my yard in the night eating wherever they like.
I finally got so disgusted this summer that I resorted to moving all the hanging baskets off their hooks around the patio every night and stashing them behind the couch against the brick of the house where the deer can't get to them. They demolished an entire gorgeous basket of impatiens in one night. THEN every morning while I wait for the coffee to drip I put them all back on their hooks!
BUT they kept coming and getting whatever morsels they could find so now I have deer netting covering all the blooming borders in my flower beds! What I haven't figured out how to do yet is how to stymie the bold obese groundhog that lives under the shed next door. He loves chrysanthemums and is growing fatter by the day! Maybe he needs to get on the government's new obesity initiative! Now there's a plan................
All that to say that one thing I'm learning in all this doing battle with deer, rabbits and groundhogs is that I notice my flowers more and do whatever I can to protect them. It is the process of the battle that gives me a greater appreciation for the beauty that is left! I think there's a parable in here somewhere...........!