Pests

[Alan B]

Do you have a weed in the garden that is a particular problem?  I've been prompted to write this by finding another colony of bittercress.  I have spent years on a quest to wipe out this plant, trying to make sure it never seeds etc but every year it comes up in numbers that defy belief.
My other major pest are mice.  I have become convinced that I live in the mouse capital of the UK.  I'm all for wildlife but I can only be pushed so far and like the Incredible Hulk says, they won't like me when I'm angry!!!!

[ranunculus]

Hi Alan,
We too have bittercress and mice (with mayonnaise) and slugs and snails and puppy dog tails; shrews, woodlice, cigarette butts from over the fence, leaves from neighbours' trees; grass and ivy coming under the fence - did I mention mice, a viola that will take over the world, dandy little lions, more mice, footballs, cricket balls, golf balls, deflated balls (returned), caterpillars, large mice, moss, moss and more ruddy moss, liverworts in profusion, charity sacks, mouses, voles, CATS, magpies, greenfly, whitefly, flybe, squirrels, Jovibarba's Witnesses, sonic booms from local radios, midges, suicidal fireworks, barking banshees, ghosts, washing line choppers, mice and every damn weed known to Robert Rolfe.  Happy gardening folks.    ......  and mice!

[Alan B]

How do you stay happy?  Or don't you?

[ranunculus]

Eternally happy ... but completely overrun.   

[Carlo]

Bittercress, garlic mustard, chickweed, oxalis....

[Maggi Young]

Tropaeolum speciosum; the tiny white oxalis ; mice; slugs ; snails, vine weevils ;hairy bittercress ...... more or less in that order 

[Paul T]

Petty Spurge, certain oxalis (others I adore and collect), sorrel (shudder), couchgrass, galium sp. (can't recall it's species name, has sticky leaves and little ball seeds).

Those are the weeds that just spring to mind off the top of my head.

Cliff,

Do your mice really come with mayonnaise?

[ranunculus]

Cliff,
Do your mice really come with mayonnaise?

No Paul ... they come with impunity!   (I just thought that 'cress and mice' sounded like a tempting filling for a Pudsey Pig sandwich starter - with mayonnaise).

By the way ... I forgot vine weevils, leatherjackets, sheep leaping the fences on trampolines, hawkers, double glazing salesmen, Avon ladies smelling delightful, wasps, ants, yaks, totally lost skunks smelling less than delightful, duck billed mice and rampant Pudsey Pigs.
There will be more ... oh yes, crocosmia and Acanthus mollis.  Please bear with me whilst I fumigate ...

[gote]

There are degrees in hell. I wish I had cats. they would keep some of the mice out.
ANIMALS:
Moose - Well not often in the garden They make most damage to pines in the forest but find Bergenia tasty..
Roe deer - Evil beasts that search out the most expensive and rare to munch on.,
Beaver - eats my Nymphaeas and weeping willows at the waterfront.
Fallow deer - 10 km away. Some years ago they had my vedgetables but withdrew.
Red deer - 3 km away eats my neighbours picea abies in the forest. Have not yet found me.
Boar - destroyed a third of my potatoes last year.
Voles - tunnel and eat all kinds of bulbs and roots. Destroyed a very rare apple tree some years ago.
Mice - dig up unproteced corydalis and crocus and eat them.
Moskitos - they do not feed on my plants - they feed on ME
Ticks - they also feed on me.
Lily beetle, Nymphaea beetle.
PLANTS
The most obnoxious weeds are in no particular order:
Urtica dioica, Aegpodium podagria. Anthriscus silverstris, Campanula rapuncloides. Ranunculus repens, Stellaria media. Elytria repens, Poa annua. Chelidonium majus,
Semi-weeds meaning that I tolerate them when they are under control:
Smilacina stellata. Asarum europeum, Paris quadrifolia, Scilla siberica, Anemone nemorosa and ranuncloides. Ranunculus ficaria, Pestasites hybridus and japonica, Polygonum (fallopia) sachalinense and japonica. Gagea lutea. Betula alba,  Fraxinus excelsior Ulmus sp. Alnus sp.
Plants that must be moved because they come up in the wrong place.
Lilium martagon and superbum. Helleborus various. Corydalis various, Trillium various. Primula japonica, veris, elatior, sieboldii and chungensis. Meconopsis tall blues.

English bluebells and ornithogalum nutans are NOT weeds. I have difficulty in overwintering them.

Göte.
I try hard to be at the top of the list do I not??

   
 

 

[Maggi Young]

ANIMALS:
Moose -
 Roe deer -
Beaver -
Fallow deer -
Red deer -
Boar -
Voles -
Mice -
Moskitos -
Ticks -
Lily beetle, Nymphaea beetle.

 Yes, well, now I think about things..... my life's not so bad, after all! 

[arisaema]

At least you don't have bears yet, Göte Ticks and mosquitos I can live with, midges on the other hand...

[Lesley Cox]

So what are you complaining about Alan?  

Is there a good lunatic asylum near you Cliff? 

[Ragged Robin]

Slugs and snails and and creeping mares tails are all pesky pests in my garden - they have moved in to the rockery and love the cool crevices so thoughtfully provided for them in close proximity to their favourite food; so they multiply daily  

[ranunculus]

Is there a good lunatic asylum near you Cliff? 

I'm not certain, Lesley ... I'll ask the pink frog with eleven legs in my navel!

Esmerelda said; 'Yes ... Oldham"

[Paul T]

Gote,

I am suddenly rather glad that I don't live in Sweden.  I never felt that way before reading your post!