Gravel or landscaping rock - it generally boils down to one's idea of a good thing becoming someone else's nightmare. If they're fairly new, haven't settled in and buried themselves, I'd make an attempt at raking a section of them up since you'd like to do some gardening. The rocks are not likely to prevent weeds. Failing that, many things could be planted just by digging holes down past the rock - a sort of rock garden, a garden with rock mulch. For an experiment on the inexpensive side, the big box stores like Home depot, Lowes, Wal-mart generally have seasonal garden centers with all kinds of things you could use - Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (bearberry, kinnikinnick) is a nice ground creeper with pink-y flowers in early summer and red berries later. Juniperus horizontalis (Creeping juniper) is a good filler and can spill over edges. There are low growing sedums, phlox subulata, artemisia schmidtiana "Silver Mound", as well as other easy care/no care perennials... and there are always the annuals for instantly gratifying a need for space filling color. If truly temporary digs, I wouldn't make a big investment, but would at least give myself something pleasant to look at and be out in.

There are so many sources on a google search it can be overwhelming but the fact is frogs can survive even if they become a frogcicle. Not all hibernate in water. Many hibernate in the ground or in plant debris. In water they are usually found in debris on the bottom or in the soil in plant containers. That is what I referred to as bedding materials. Several forum members have used the quilting material but I have some reservations about that since they often use the polyester type and many of those have such long strands they could entangle the frog and others are so short they won't hold together in the water and just float away. Some of the sources recommend leaving debris on the bottom until temperatures are reliably above freezing. A search on this subject in this forum should bring up some good discussions. In the link , Laura zone5 has, as always, some well thought out suggestions and others on that thread do as well. To do a search go to the top of the forum page and you will see a place to enter the subject "frog hibernation". Sandy Here is a link that might be useful: basilbird's worries

papnnana........I think nature waxes and wanes. I know I got water snakes in my little watergarden for a number of years, then nothing for the past 4-5 years. I try not to be happy about that! I've saved a couple frogs from the jaws of the snakes......but they need to eat too. It's hard to know who to cheer for! So.....you might be in one of those "not very many frogs around" years. Do you live in the city/suburbs/country? I live in the country and pretty close to a creek.....so I do wonder if that brings them closer. I never heard tree frogs until we had a couple little stocktank ponds......now there are a ton of them in the summer. I wonder if you have a pump in your pond? Sometimes I think they hear the water running and that attracts them. And of course, the kind of predators you have around can make a difference too. Let us know what kind of pond environment you have and maybe we can give you more suggestions. I found about 8 dead frogs in my inground 300 gallon stocktank one spring. I was soooo sad. I think I figured out that I was keeping it too warm all winter, with a deicer that was much too large for it. So now, I keep the pump running for as long as possible, and when it starts to get frozen (the pond and the pump), I put in a very small deicer.....just to keep a small hole open in the ice. I just keep my fingers crossed that there's enough oxygen in there to keep them alive until I can get the pump going again. This weekend it's supposed to be around 1 degree at night. :( What kind of frogs did you used to have? I have mostly tree frogs, then green, and once I had a couple bullfrogs who didn't stay around very long.............which was sorta okay with me. I love hearing their croaking......but I've heard they eat everything and everything, including small children. ;) I'm a big bird fan, so the last thing I want to see is a bullfrog eating a bird. But.......I guess that's just nature, but like I said, it's hard to know who to cheer for! Good luck with your frogs!

Hi there, Becky, Your entire thread (well, a link to it) was posted over in the Cacti & Succulents Forum (it must've really had an impact on the individual who posted it), and I came on over to check it out. I have to say, I'm all astonishment, in complete awe, and thoroughly moved. This has been an unbelievably beautiful story. You've been part of an amazing blessing. Few things are this magical - which is an utter shame, truly. As a species, we expend so much energy separating ourselves from the miracle of life. You have surrounded yourself in it. Oh, that the rest of mankind would be so attuned to its Mother. I will admit, much of the thread I skimmed over. (As a quick aside, you really should consider having this story published as a book or photojournal.) I did catch the few posts from such folks as "joepyeweed" and others. Their comments aren't without merit. They have some real and valid concerns, and I don't disagree with their arguments. I think, however, that theirs, in contrast to yours (and, it would appear, the majority of everyone else here), paints the situation in an either/or scenario - either the bears are allowed human contact, or they're not. One position says you're doing just fine; the other says that you're interfering with nature, and (thus) putting at risk not only any humans the bears might decide later on that they're not afraid of, but also the bears themselves (as a consequence of a lack of fear of humans). Bears are wild animals, and should be treated as such. They need to be afraid of humans, so that they'll stay away from humans, and human foods, etc. I suggest a third perspective - one, I think, that would actually require a paradigm shift. As I said, as a species we expend so much time, energy, effort and resource trying to separate ourselves from the natural world; this is as much a result of our notion that we actually are separate from the natural world as it is a prime contributing factor to that notion. (We think we're not part of nature, so we separate ourselves from nature; we've become so removed from nature, that we don't recognize that we're actually part of it.) I suggest that this notion we've developed that we are separate from nature is folly (indeed, it's responsible for much of the destructive, overconsumptive behavior that is presently destroying the Earth), and that the idea that we need to maintain that separation is flawed. Your contact with the bears is, in my opinion, natural. You chose to live in their natural habitat; but instead of trying to drive them away, you chose to live peacefully in harmony with them. You weren't domesticating them. You gave them a chance at survival; and (at least at the time of your last post) you were successful. They recognize you by scent, by sound, and by sight. I don't know how much and what kind of contact the Native Americans had with the bears back before the New World was colonized, but I'd venture to say you have lived with these bears...