I live on a farm in VA and have finally had to give in and allow someone to come shoot these guys. I quite love them, and have huge respect for the grand daddy, who has lived at this farm longer than I have, surviving total bulldozing of the old garden, complete rebuilding of the old farm house (under which he also used to live) and my 2 Border Collies. Besides, they remind me of my beloved Lhasa Apso who has passed away. HOWEVER, I've been living here for 10 years and starting 2 years ago, the GH (who has since created quite an impressive giant condo complex under a pile of old wood from the old razed barn) finally started annihilating my garden. Despite what some people here have posted I can tell you, they are quite smart & have a keen sense of hearing. GHs live in burrows underground (like a cave). It always has more than one entrance/exit. They generally come out early in the morning and at sunset. I have an entire wire cattle fence, along with electric hot wire all along the entire bottom perimeter of my fence to keep my dogs in (who like to constantly dig under and run away whenever they hear thunder, gun shots or just feel like it!). This hot wire is set for the highest level of shock, and will keep a horse or bull away! This is only 1 foot away from the GH woodpile den. My garden is inside this fence and then inside yet another fence, which is also hot wired at the ground level. Yet, the GHs know full well how to go around the fence, burrow under the fence, whatever. All I know is they have started again eating every tomato I have that starts to ripen and will absolutely take every melon we are growing. And they could care less about my Border Collies who know the word "Ground Hog" and will dive and dig at the hole if you say that to them. The GH just goes somewhere in his condo complex and doesn't give a hoot. I should say though that my 2 dogs are 2 goofy lovebugs and routinely take their balls & toys to the cows and any other critter in hopes they will play, and would never hurt any little critter intentionally (unlike most farm dogs.) If they did encounter the GH, they'd probably offer him a tomato. After years of only seeing the old grand daddy GH, last week I saw him showing the ropes to a little one. Last night my farm tenant came over with a high powered rifle and shot the old guy, but also said he saw another giant one (probably the mom) and a smaller one. There is likely a huge family under there. It made me feel guilty and wistfully sad, but at the end of the day, not only would I be fighting a losing battle of the garden, wild animals carry disease, fleas, ticks with Lyme, if cornered they have huge claws & fangs, and the holes they dig can cause someone (or my dogs or cows) to break their leg. If you are going to try a humane trap (which I did), they are extremely smart and you will have a long wait and will have to create the trap to mimic a hollow den or they are not dumb enough to go into a metal contraption - LOL! I agree with the hunters posting above that if you are going to shoot at it, get someone who knows what they are doing and will kill the animal humanely and put him out cleanly. Shooting at him with a BB gun is cruel, as it will not kill him, just cause wounds, suffering and illness. Hope this helps! Now I'm also on the case of the bunnies, voles and whatever is now eating all my blackberries! ARGH! LOL!!!!

I had alot of snakes in Louisiana. Unless they were water moccasins, I liked them. But they scared my daughter alot. My surprise today was yellow calla lillies! The reason this is such a surprise was that when I went on one of my compost/mulch runs to the free city facility, in early spring, I saw a clump of discarded calla lillies. They were small and I was not sure what color or if they would survive. But....I rescued them and I made a cursory spot in a fence corner. And today - they're a pretty good clump of great looking yellow calla lillies! And they look great in that corner too. Laurie

PLANT ID TAGS: I usually order the special-deal-of-the-day at Pettags4less http://www.pettags4less.com/aluminum-tags/single-sided.html#isPage=1 if it's their large circular aluminum one, their shield-shaped one or their large heart one. These are sturdy aluminum pet I.D. tags which are laser-engraved on one side with the plant name. I find that the black colored ones show the plant name best. They are very reasonable at $2.29 each. Much cheaper than those machines found at Petco pet stores. The pretty copper anodized aluminum stakes are 9" tall tent stakes from Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Coghlans-1000-4-Count-9-Inch-Ultralight/dp/B0030OLMWI/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1430454515&sr=8-4&keywords=aluminum+tent+stakes Amazon offers many brands of essentially the same tent stake, in different colors and some are slightly different in design, but this one gets the job done. I then get some stainless steel key rings and put the key ring through the hold in the tent stake after removing the white cord which comes there (meant to facilitate pulling the tent stakes out of the ground).

Thank you all. I had a lot of bloom in back too which is nice. Debra, Carolina Sugar Daddy is a really good bloom machine, and actually Isle of Patmos has had at leas five clumps as nice or nicer than today's so it is okay too. Jean, I love those pinks and purples too, thank you. Thanks you Sherry. I have to make myself post single blooms when the plants are pouring out blooms...it is funny how the different zones affect bloom, isn't it? Thanks so much Ed. Love the blooms. Brad, it was anaccidental pairing since I had just gotten Neon Flamingo, but they do pair up nicely, don't they? kay