Bears happen. Here in Montana black bears do wander into our town (well, small city) and cause a lot of problems in orchards and dumpsters. Fish and Game or Wildlife and Parks will humanely deal with them pretty quickly. Usually they dart them and relocate them, sometimes trap. They almost never find it necessary to kill them. I've taken to carrying pepper spray when I'm in the mountains now (as much for wolves and cougar as for bear) and you might consider it. This is a pint aerosol that goes off with a very loud bang and sends a cloud of capsaicin. It has been known to turn charging grizzlies, which is a good trick. One experience with it will convince Black Bear to seek friendlier neighborhoods. Expect to pay forty or fifty bucks for a can. Local bear expert Jamie Jonkel says it will, in fact, deter 9 of 10 grizzlies .... There's no warranty for the tenth bear. You'd have to lay in wait for your bruin, so it may not be practical. I can imagine trying to convince my wife that I needed to sit up and stare at my trees until daybreak! Good luck. We all sympathise. :-)M

Thanks to everyone for your replies! When I mentioned "up against a north wall" above, I should clarify. There are no basements here, and almost all houses, like mine, are placed 3-4 feet above ground on brick pilings that sit on the ground. So although on most houses there is skirting/siding from the bottom of the structure to the ground, it's not really a wall, and there is no basement on the other side of it. It's just an optical illusion of stoutness (or may really help prevent the wind from getting a good grip on the structure, I don't know) and prevents larger critters from getting under the house. However, it does make sense that the warmth from the ground nearby would radiate to the perpetually shady spots, especially if the ground isn't as frozen as I thought, if at all. I'm inspired to check what happens if I try to dig a hole at the end of Jan. (It starts to warm back up in Feb.) ...with one being slightly drought stressed and the other turgid, the mildly drought stressed plant will exhibit more resistance to chill. Moisture being the biggest problem. Again we arrive at drainage (even though we aren't "in containers" at the moment.) Interesting. Where I am now, winter is a very dry season, but when it does rain, an inch of rain received in just an hour will be completely drained away within hours. After just an hour or 2 after it stops raining, you can drive on the grass without making tracks. Rosemary comes to mind first when I think about this. How many of us have killed a potted rosemary by overwatering? It's an evergreen, long-lived shrub in the ground here. Unfortunately, as I suspected, even though moisture is such a critical factor, there seems to be an unknown magical malleable combination that is different for different plants. I've been confused about microclimates since I moved here. The one that used to be my crutch (up against the basement wall) is not an option. The others I know but haven't tried are "huge pile of leaves" and "surrounded by rocks/bricks." If I could master those, the possibilities seem endless. This year, I'm going to try the leaf pile on Bougainvillea and piles of rocks around the base of Strobilanthes dyerianus (Persian shield.) Both are just 1 zone out of range here. I've seen the basement wall allow a 2-zone jump in OH, so I'm hopeful. What are your thoughts/experiences about microclimating? (According to spell check, I've created a word. How fun is that?!) Toni, although we have had a few close calls this past week (just under 40,) I've only taken a few cuttings and put them against the house, and have had just a few damaged leaves. There were a couple tense mornings when I went to check on the plants, but I just couldn't cut them all down yet with night time lows going back up to the 50's through the 10-day forecast. So far, there are no plants inside yet. That's another fine line - the timing of cutting down the plants that decorate your yard...

There are plenty of sites on "Hugel gardening" for better tasting veges. Yes, veges like tomatoes taste better when it's well-drained. I planted a row a tomatoes from the top of the hill, descending down ward to a low & poor drainage spot. The tomato from the top of the hill taste delicious (soil is quite dry), but the tomato at the bottom of the hill, where it's soaking wet clay ... taste awful !! Emgardener from Bay area (heavy clay, shady garden) ... posted how healthy his roses are in "Hugel pot", no diseases whatsoever. I notice that roses' root need oxygen, and Hugel pot helps with both aeration, perfect moisture, and drainage. When I have poor drainage in pots, my roses break out with both BS and mildew !! Emgardener (or Gardenseek in his blog) posted You-tube of his experiments with various mediums: the best result was with a vertical stump at the bottom of the pot, to wick up moisture along the wood-grain. The worst result was with 50% pine fines and 50% Turface. Bluegirl suggested 2" x 4" scrap woods ... great idea for the bottom of the pots. But I'm concerned: if the wood is treated with chemicals, then that would contaminate veges. like tomatoe or eggplant. One approach is to line the bottom of the pot with corn cobs (broken in to halves) ... corn cobs hold moisture evenly, better than wood chips. Another approach is to use the young, whitish coconut core sold at Ethnic stores. There's a soft-spot at the bottom of the core, which one pokes with screw-driver, then drink the juice. There's a site which showed how to crack the coconut along its equator. After the soft white core is eaten, the fibrous white shell can be used to line the bottom of the pot VERTICLALY. The shape is perfect, cone-shaped 5 inches height, with a 5" diameter. Roots can spread easily over the cone-shaped coconut coir. Coconut core is high in potassium and phosphorus. The advantage of fresh young coconut core is it retains water, without the added salt like coconut coir (salt is used in manufacturing process). Below is a link to the picture of fresh young coconut core, sold for $1 each in CA, it has fresh coconut juice and soft & creamy white inner ... taste better than pudding. Here is a link that might be useful: Picture of fresh coconut core (white fibers) This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Fri, Dec 6, 13 at 17:52

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