Terrene, The photo of your vole patrolcat is too cute-- fluffy little face stuffed full of critter.... I *love* it. My own (indoor) kitty friend is sitting on my lap as I (try to) type this. He's giving me a look that says "don't get any big ideas, woman.". I make my critter cages in all sizes. It just depends on the plant. I've found that an 8" diameter, 10" deep cage is sufficient for a lot of plants. I could make them bigger, but my soil is crazy compacted clay and full of tree roots, and I just don't have time to spend 30 minutes digging each hole. The roots grow through the hardware cloth eventually, but even if the critters mess with those, you've still protected the main tap and lateral roots. I would suggest starting out with 1/4" hardware cloth-- it's much easier to cut than 1/2". A good pair of tin-snips will also make your life easier, as will some nitrile coated knit gardening gloves. They are thin enough to give you good dexterity but still thick enough to keep your hands from being torn to shreds. As for installation, there really isn't that much to it. Dig a hole larger than the cage, put it in the hole and fill with plant and dirt. At first I planted them with about 1" of the cage above the soil, but I got tired of stumbling on them so now I place them at soil level. Thus far, no difference in critter "activity" between the two planting depths. If you need to plant something very shallow rooted, like crocus, and are worried about digging from the top down in, then get some crushed oyster shell (aka crushed poultry shell) and work it into the top 1" of the soil. It will keep the critters from digging down into the cage...... until all the birds have eaten it. Plan on reapplying it once or twice a season. Daylilies and iris were two plant types my neighbor and I couldn't agree on. I thought daylilies were critter-proof, but not iris. She thought the opposite.

Anne, congratulations on the chickadees, the cutest (and friendliest) of the cute. Pruning dead wood now makes more sense than trying to prune it out when even the live canes look dead, I think. No harm in pruning if there's no activity around the nests, which there would be right now if they were being used. Many bird species don't use the same nesting places from one year to the next, or even salvage the materials. Other species build decoy or preliminary nests that never get used (bush-tits do this). In addition to watching the behavior of the birds, if there is a question, biologists use a mirror attached to an extension pole to check nests for eggs when the birds are away to see if they are seriously using a nest or just "hanging around". Guidelines for creating habitat for birds frequently mention including thorny and/or dense shrubs to provide refuges from predators. Plus, from a "natural selection" point of view, it seems intuitive that birds nesting in thorny shrubs would be more likely to fledge offspring. On the Las Pilitas Nursery website, in the entry for Ribes speciosum (fuchsia-flowered gooseberry, as thorny as 'Mermaid', worse than barbwire, but I love it), the author talks about how the hummingbird lives in his for two months of the year, and can use the tufts of cat hair stuck on the spines to build a nest. Alister Stella Grey is dense and armed and no cat (or Cooper's hawk) goes there, for sure. Debbie

That's great! We have/had a few owls in the vicinity, but nothing I've had any chance of photgraphing. Occasional hawks, but I'm still jealous...

lol-harryshoe or is it hairyshoe? Great picture. I'll bet that was wonderful to see them from your window. I've seen nesting GHOs and also a pair that hunts at night over my friend's property. They're beautiful.