Here in Central Illinois (we are about 70 miles NE of St. Louis) I live on a lovely country hilltop - TONS of space so my gardening in contained only by my energy level. I have room to keep a huge compost pile out back behind the vegetable garden and it doesn't spoil the vista. The house is in a mostly sunny spot and faces SW, so we have plenty of sunshine for a colorful border around the house. Huge sunny vegetable garden and orchard area surrounding the drive up the hill. Behind the house and the deck that navigates the hill I have shadier areas that grow amazing hydrangeas, japanese maples, and mega hostas. Because we are in the country - I get absolutely amazing birds and butterflies in my butterfly border. A real joy to behold. On the negative side, it gets dry on the hilltop - we are NEVER too wet with the drainage and even after days of rain it dries out quickly. My soil is toward alkaline and there are some acid lovers that simply will not grow here - I used to have beautiful rhododendrons and azaleas in our home on the other side of town but I have given up on them. It warms up fast here in the spring so everything goes thru the sequence of bloom paces so darn fast and by about mid July most of the garden summer perennials are fading - I need annuals, perennial hibiscus, dahlias to help fill in that period until the fall blooming asters and then the mums pick up in September when it cools. The winters have been generally milder - but we tend to get ice storms and without a lot of snow cover, a big freeze is really hard on the plantings. I would have proudly said we don't have japanese beetles until about 4 years ago when they finally arrived on their march west. I don't get aphids or slugs - but we do see flea beetles, plenty of squash bugs that inject their deadly wilt in my squash, cucumbers, and pumpkins, and green corn borer beetle forms that munch on my late summer flowers.

It took the birds 6 months to find my nyjer feeder when I first put it out. When they finally found it, the goldfinches attracted other birds to my other feeders. I had them hanging off the bottom of our seldom-used 2nd story deck, so they were semi-shaded. I also made a "bird bath" out of a boot tray - it was less than an inch deep and a good 2' long and about 16" wide. It was black, so I wouldn't put something like that out in the sun. I changed the water and scrubbed it out every day, and "sterilized" with vinegar (and rinsed and scrubbed again) about once a week. I sterilized the scrub brush in a bucket of bleach water overnight before sterilizing the "bird bath" the next day, so that the brush was fresh and clean for the post-vinegar-bath scrubbing. So - the night before, on cleaning day - I dump and scrub the bird bath; then fill it with vinegar; put the brush in the bleach water. Next morning, dump the bleach water and the vinegar thoroughly rinse the brush and let it dry in the sun (helps drive off any remaining chlorine). scrub out with the sterilized brush Thoroughly rinse the bird bath; start over again This winter I hope to make a large ceramic platter (I'm an amateur potter) with a glazed interior that will tolerate being sterilized with a bleach solution. I plan to bury that to it's lip in one of my raised beds and keep it filled with water via a dripper line. I'll make something similar for use as a butterfly puddler. Having a water feature can only help in attracting birds, but patience will help as well. One thing I would suggest is to get rid of the "songbird mix" and feed only black oil sunflower seed, safflower seed, and nyjer (in a tube feeder), in the way of seed. Every "songbird mix" I've ever seen has a high proportion of "junk" seed in it which attracts house sparrows, to your peril. At my former residence, they weren't much of a problem, but here they have mobbed my feeder to the point where I had to stop using it. They even scared my hummers away, as well as the mountain jays, mountain blue birds, and quail. Sadly, their seed scattering ways seemed to actually ATTRACT pigeons, LOL! I'm going to try to put the sunflower seed (which has to be hulled due to the former owner of this place having put in Astroturf - impossible to clean sunflower hulls out of) in a mesh feeder that only clingers can use and see if that helps. Otherwise, it's hummingbird feeders and the quail block, and the nyjer mesh feeders I have, and that's all I'll be able to put out here. Maybe an upside-down tube feeder. But nothing for the house sparrows!

I'm glad your bird problem turned out to be seasonal but just in case you ever face this problem again (or any bird infestation problem) I thought it might be helpful to just mention a different angle on this. The problem is not that the birds are pooping (or whatever they're doing) in your pool. That is simply a symptom of your real problem: that your environment is attractive to birds. If you really want to keep birds from being destructive to your property you have to make it so that your land is a place they don't want to hang out on in the first place. There are a lot of different approaches to this but yes, stopping the food supply is one of them. Another would be the mylar balloons someone else mentioned up above. There are also specialized bird scare balloons with 'eyes' that follow the birds wherever they fly as well as holographic tape. These incorporate movement so they are usually more affective than static decoys. There are other senses to attack as well: taste/smell, touch, and hearing. Birds hate methyl anthranilate (a chemical derived from concord grapes that has long been used for grape flavoring)--it gives them a similar sensation to what we feel when we encounter bleach. This comes in commercially available sprays. Also, there are sticky gels, netting, or spike strips that keep birds from roosting on certain surfaces. Lastly, there are sound devices that utilize recordings of predators/distress calls that scare birds away. For a partially or fully enclosed area you could use an ultrasonic device as well (one that can't be heard by humans but is annoying to birds and bats). Make sure that you switch up whatever you use from time to time. If you use balloons, move the location (but always keep it near where the birds are nesting). If you're using a sound device change the interval between effects, try to randomize the effects being used. Also, using the products together in a synergistic way will create a more effective and longer-lasting reaction. I'm glad to hear that no one has mentioned killing or injuring the birds...don't do that. As mentioned before that would be reacting to the symptoms rather than truly solving the problem. Furthermore, it would be very easy to accidentally tamper with one of the MANY birds protected by the Migratory Bird Act of 1918 (and then you'd be in big trouble). Just a side note: be careful when cleaning up the bird poop. Birds can transmit over 60 diseases to humans. Some of them are fatal. Bird dropping particles can be unknowingly inhaled and lead to serious health problems. Good luck in your future bird encounters! Here is a link that might be useful: click for examples, case studies and FAQs about bird pest control

I like the blue rug too, but having trouble picturing it in the room as i dont have any blues in my house. Would it look okay with the rug in the adjacent room, which is rust, green and ivory? thank you mlweaving, I only looked at Ballard, not the others. I did get some samples from Ballard, but they sent only 2 of what I asked for, the rest were different ones. They looked very different in color from online. I'll check Rugstudio and RugCompany. There's just so many choices. She's been trying to sell that table for several months. I was waiting for the sofa to check the height, but thinking I should purchase it anyway. Maybe I could put it in the corner where the bookcase is as an accent table instead of an end table?