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joannemb
11 years ago
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mike_rivers
11 years agoRelated Discussions
Plagued by rats and mice
Comments (14)I may add a few things: In addition to using store brand rat baits, you can make some of your own. There are various formulas that I have tried. Basically you have a BASE ingredient. I choose corn meal and creamy peanutbutter. Then mix it with combination of the following: --sugar -*- baking powder/ -*- ground pure aspirin -+- plaster of paris also, provide some water for them. All [-*- ]items will cause digestion problem. Aspirin, may cause internal bleeding. As long as you get them eat your bait you are on the right track. Keep it on. Do not expect them drop dead right away. You want them to get sick and die.That is best you can do. For those of you with dogs/cats. As suggested, take a big metal coffee can and cut an entrance for rats. You can do this with a metal shearer. Now invert that can over the bait dish. Put a brick or stone on the can so cats/dogs/wind cannot tople it. So this is cat/dog proof, wind proof, rain proof, bird proof, squirrel proof,... You can use the same idea for rat traps but the cover has to be big enough to accomodate the trap to snap without any obsticle....See MoreThe Coming Plague of Pears
Comments (49)MY property in particular is literally infested with them. If I go back in time on google earth I can see how with in 10 years an empty field became full of 10 - 20 foot tall Bradford pears. They are extremely hard to get rid of, and their terrible gnarly thorny limbs makes cutting them really difficult. They spread like privet, sending up new trees from their root system. I cut several down and treated the stumps only to find new growth sprouting from the stumps! One tree which I cut down still had a tiny bit of bark attached to the stump and the fallen section was still alive and well! In fall the migrating birds eat the fruit and where ever they poop a new tree pops up. Even pulling a 1 inch sprout is difficult because it forms a long cork screw tap root. I'm not sure how I'm going to ever eradicate them from my land. I have one acre that has literally 1 tree per square foot. I would rank this tree with private and kudzu in it's ability to take over and completely displace other native trees. I hate them soon much!!!! Thorny menace....See MoreIpheion - the plague of my gardens
Comments (3)Wow! Finally, pics to go with the horror story you've been telling us, Jen! I gave a small pot of this to my mom in the fall of 2004. But she lives on a little over an acre, and she has most of her plants crowded into the area around the house. She planted this stuff waaaay out front by the road, in her redredred clay soil, and this year, only one little clump (actually smaller than it was in the pot) came up. It still hasn't bloomed, but she's patient. Maybe it just REALLY loves your (amended) soil? Brenda...See MoreWhat trees AREN'T plagued by disease?
Comments (34)As I've mentioned here before, the notion that nature is always and everywhere perfectly diversified is a falsehood. Look at any site where a disturbance of some kind-logging, windthrow, fire, etc. has worked over an area and what you are likely to see is one or just a few types rapidly colonizing the area. My own property is an excellent example-some of the woods evidently burned during the 1930s dustbowl days and that area is a nearly-monocultural stand of northern white cedar with a smattering of paper birch thrown in. Elsewhere, Populus balsamifera is colonizing open land rapidly, again as mostly a single species. We look for overall diversity, not little pockets of evenly-mixed species. That's just as "unnatural" as anything else I've seen. Besides, nobody who lived through the Dutch elm disease days has to be told in 2015 to diversify plantings. Ash is way down on the list of species/genera that was planted in too much abundance. In my world, it went American elm/sugar or Norway maple/green ash, if you'll permit some wild oversimplification. Many of the maples are now dying off, having been improperly planted or due to other factors. Yes, diversity is important, but to suggest that every other tree be something different ignores what nature herself is up to in the woods. +oM...See MorenanadollZ7 SWIdaho
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