There’s more than one way to skin a raccoon when they become a problem, and other helpful gardening tips.

 

How do you keep the raccoons out of your swimming pool or ponds? If you have a pool or pond and want to discourage raccoons from entering without having an electric fence, float a large glass ball in it, doing so keeps the raccoons a bay. Or if raccoons are snatching fish from the pond make sure your pond walls are raised high enough, two feet is a minimum level.

 

As for keeping raccoons out of your garden where they are notorious for scratching up plants while in voracious search of grubs, the solution is simple. Scatter cayenne pepper around to deter them from entering specific areas. To protect corn which raccoons always seem to get to when it ripens surround the corn stalk with a heavy planting of squash, which flourishes in the shade of corn. Raccoons hate squash and won’t go near it. Another ploy is to tape the corn to the stalk so they can’t get it off, (102 uses for duct tape!) Do this just before the corn ripens which is when the raccoons like to do their noshing.

 

• Know your microclimate. Mainly it’s a strong intimacy with your own yard that will tell you when it is safe to plant seeds, bulbs, perennials, even trees
   
• All gardening is an experiment. Keep trying plants that are slightly out of your zone just to see how far you can push the limits of your gardening
   
• Never be intimidated by what seem to be carved-in-stone rules. Most of them can be broken by the adventurous
   
• Yellow is an incredibly seductive colour for aphids, fill a bright yellow pan with soapy water and leave it in the garden to entice them in, where they will drown.
   
• Artemisias can be used to knit disparate parts of the garden together or to provide a wave of contrasting foliage with brightly coloured leaves and blossoms.
   
• One way to discourage cats from messing about with plants is to grind up grapefruit and lemon rinds in the food processor and spread the mixture over the soil after planting. It also protects the seedlings and adds a little acid to the soil.
   
• A quick way to remember which Clematis to cut back: if tit is a hybrid, it probably grows on new wood – cut back to about 30 centimeters from the ground in spring or to strong bud growth; if it is a species (C. montana, C. orientalis) leave it alone, just clean out the deadwood. Cut back C. tangutica and other late bloomers 90 centimeters from the ground in spring.
   
• Two ideas for dealing with moles:

1. Place two or three cups of diatomaceous earth in each tunnel and push soil down until the tunnels are blocked.
2. Set a pop bottle into the soil with the mouth just above the ground, when the wind blows the bottle will whistler and irritate the animal.

 

• How to discourage squirrels:

1. Take old leather belts and drive ten centimeter finishing nails into the leather every ten centimeters; wind the belts around tree trunks from the lower part of the trunk into the branches. (Don’t do this if you have kids or animals who might climb the trees.)