Not sure how easy it is to see, but this is what I have to do every year when I plant. The netting stays on until the plants are big enough to survive having leaves or branches snipped off. Though once they're that big, the birds seem to leave everything alone. Granted, I'm fortunate I'm only dealing with birds. If this were rabbits, gophers or mice, that would seriously suck. Don't know how effective just netting would be against something with arms.

I think the sun-starved fruit tends to drop early for lack of adequate energy. I didn't keep up with scab on pears- I actually didn't realize that it can be a season long battle when it's as wet as it was this year. My 2 Boscs are 60% defoliated and dropped pears early though some are still on tree as did Highland which lost most pears too early to be worth anytning. Seckels did the same, but at least they have decent sugar. Bartlett and another unknown Bartlett type, but later, have completely healthy foliage and great fruit. Aurora stayed healthy but fruits not sweet enough. Most of the Honeycrisp apples, where foliage was fine, dropped a bit before ideal ripeness, or would have if I didn't pick them. Jonagold is thinning itself more than I'd like. All other apples were or are fine. I don't care at all about sooty blotch and fly speck.

I am soooo confused. Exactly what is a sport? A sport is a spontaneous genetic mutation that has some quality distinctively different from the original. For example, someone in Chicago spotted a flower on their 'Peace' rose that was dramatically different in color than the original--that person rooted that bit of the plant, named the variant 'Chicago Peace' and it is in commerce today. Another mutation besides flower color would be growth habit--an example of a climbing sport would be 'Climbing Peace', which has the same flowers as the original 'Peace', but which has longer, "climbing" canes.

We had deep snow cover in the winter of 2011, and I had terrible losses of my perennials and bulbs to voles, and a bit of damage to shrubs. This was mostly in the front garden where the cat doesn't hunt. The carnage continued the following spring. I was desperate, tried a mole trap, encircling the roots of some perennials with hardware cloth, but with limited success. Finally I tried a castor oil solution recommended in the Hosta forum - and the vole damage stopped immediately! It was a miracle. Now I sprinkle a castor oil solution around the root zones of many perennials and a few woody plants every fall. It lasts for months. I have an old watering can dedicated to this, because the castor oil is very sticky. Very little vole damage since using this solution. We had deep snow cover again this winter, so we'll see. I suspect there may be losses where I didn't sprinkle the solution.