Nice Janice! Don't you just love this time of the year?

Thank you, Carol, Steven, Kathy, Ursula, Jim and Lindsey.
The vole expert told me if they get hungry enough, they will eat anything....even Iris, which they have shunned in the past. I believe they have been there a few years, but their numbers probably exploded when they were given the unexpected feast of 250+ tulips last Fall They probably invited all their neighbors in, who knows? LOL
I'd noticed their holes before, but did not know what they were from before now. Had never heard of a vole before!

For heaven sake, DON"T tell them about Ca.! We have enough varmints without them.

These particular voles are Pine voles, which, I guess, are the prevalent variety in North Carolina.
Hope this nasty variety is not in Cali, Carol.
I hear they can level an entire landscape.
We checked the poison bait stations yesterday and they have eaten it, so let us hope!

We tried bait stations for rats one year in the freeway landscape. We ran out of bait when we were near the yard one day, so we took our 1/2 hr lunch, restocked our bait, and returned to finish filling the stations we had just partially filled. They had been emptied in the 45 min. we were gone! After that we decided to carry a big stick with us. Fortunately, the Great State caved to either the environmentalists or the cost effectiveness, and we gave up baiting. I always worried about "seconary kill" if the raptors, foxes, or Coyotes ate the poisened varmints.

Well, just starting here.







Spiranthes!

And a wonderful start it is!

Glorious, Kathy! Is that bloodroot? Fabulous photography! Love the Hellebores and daffodils.
Carol, this poison bait is specially formulated to not be dangerous to non-targeted animals.
A 50 lb animal would have to eat 7 lbs of dead voles to die from the poison.
Information on it http://www.volecontrol.com/pro...
I was concerned about that, too.

Beautiful Kathy,
I love Spring the best!

Glad to hear that Janice. The stuff we were using was Warfarin. I should try it around here...the slugs and snails loved it, but since they don't actually have blood, I don't know if it would even harm them. I gotta say, you just haven't lived until you've crawled around in the underbrush, on the side of a busy freeway, to feed rats. I'm soooo glad I'm retired!

Very nice, Kathy. Those snow pictures are but a distant memory.

Janice, tell those voles about the vicious black snakes in Florida.

Jim

Beautiful gardens everyone! We've got rain again here today but the warmer temps are really greening everything up, but not much blooming yet. So all we need is a bit of sun for things to explode and take off

Shades of blue today.

Oh that's soooo beautiful!!!!

You are all ahead of me. I have some daffodils and Lenten Rose about the same colors as Kathy. Lots of primrose and tiny white flowers on pachysandra. Unfortunately, I am primarily in the shade...

Nice Janice!

Much enjoying the view here.

Late daffodil "Merlin' blooming with the Iris.