Squirrels


I have to admit that I have a love/hate relationship with squirrels. On most accounts they are a real pain in the a$$. Each year as I plant my flats of wildflower seed, they venture up onto my potting benches and dig them up. Furiously... They chew things up that shouldn't be chewed and they do their best to rob my bird feeders of all they contain.

On the other hand, I am reminded that they are part of this natural world that I claim to find sacred. As a former wife once told me as I complained about them - You landscaped our yard for wildlife and you got what you deserve - or something like that.  She was right of course (not sure I ever admitted that before now).  We cannot pick and choose which wildlife species are deserving of our attention and which are not - at least we shouldn't try. Over the years, I have had to field so many questions like this; the folks that don't want a native plant landscape because it might attract snakes, for example. To be honest, I've seen snakes in every possible permutation of a Florida landscape since moving here 35 years ago. There is no single landscape that repels them, but of course a few that would welcome them more than others. 

We have some control over what will choose to live with us by the plants we choose to use and the way we put them together, but I doubt that there is any way to keep squirrels (gray squirrels, at least) out of our landscape. The question is rather whether we should even consider it. We do the natural world a great disservice by labeling things as good or bad, pretty or ugly, beneficial or not. These are human values but they aren't the values nature would put on them if they were capable of doing so. I believe that if we are to truly become part of the fabric of nature we will eschew labeling the rest of life and accept it for what it is. The squirrels in my yard are a nuisance to me - that's for sure, but I accept them for what they are and at times, I add some bird feed or acorns to the area beneath my feeder for them. When next they dig up a flat, I will ask myself why I was kind to them after what they did to me, but I will also understand that squirrels are just being squirrels. It's their nature and I will cope with it. After all, I want my landscape to be part of nature and I cannot do that by picking and choosing who is welcome or not. 

Comments

  1. DS DammDecember 10, 2020 at 5:03 AM

    Now I know just what you mean. I designed my garden for wildlife and they moved in. Some cherished and some I live with because they all deserve their place in the balance of the ecosystem. I tried everything to keep them off the feeders, even put up more feeders but that only resulted in more squirrels.
    I have come to love my furry visitors (far less destructive then my armadillos, which I shake my head and thank them for tilling my soil and plant something else) and in observing the coming and going of wildlife, they all seem to have their own schedule, the birds come when the squirrels take their naps....
    Love the blog, thanks for publishing.
    Doreen

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ethics of Collecting Seed

Image
I've been writing lately about seeds and using them to create what is often called a pollinator meadow. A great many of the plants in my new landscape were grown from seed. Frankly, I have always loved sowing seeds and watching them sprout. I started in early childhood and I've been doing it since. It's rewarding and the anticipation of waiting for seeds to sprout is difficult to match unless you play the lottery. I rarely purchase seeds. I collect them. When I can, I purchase a few plants of a species I wish to add to my landscape and I then collect their seed after they bloom. If a plant doesn't prosper sufficiently to set seed for me, it is not a plant I wish to continue to grow. Over the years, I've tried a great many plants that I've failed to adequately provide for. Today in my landscape, I'm trying a few that I've never tried before. The exceptions come from plants that are not available in the trade. To grow these from seed, I need to collect
Read more

Wildflower Meadows - The Importance of Grasses

Image
A Natural Wildflower "Meadow" - Apalachicola National Forest I grew up in the prairie Midwest and was fortunate to have been caught up in the prairie restoration movement that blazed brightly in the last few decades of this past century. Very little of our original prairie ecosystems remain as the rich prairie soils were quickly converted to agricultural uses as European settlers swarmed their way over the continent.  These ecosystems are extremely diverse, regardless of where they occur. From the tall-grass prairies of the Midwest to the rockland prairies of the Mid-South and the true dry prairie systems here in Florida where I now reside, there are several universal characteristics - they are some of the most species diverse systems in the world and they are dominated by grasses. Grasses, in all their many shapes and forms, are what form the foundation of any "meadow." That must also be true for all the "wildflower meadows" I see extolled on s
Read more

A Pollinator Garden is More than Wildflowers

Image
A natural grass-dominated meadow in the shade Splitbeard bluestem - Andropogon ternarius Lopsided Indiangrass - Sorghastrum secundum Sites on social media that are promoting pollinator gardens are rife with posts about wildflowers. Folks seeking to make their landscapes pollinator friendly seem to be almost-universally focused on wildflowers. What these well-meaning people seem to not understand is the importance of native grasses. Meadows, prairies, and other wildflower-dominated systems are mostly grass. Grasses form the backbone of every one of these plant communities. It isn't the wildflowers. They simply provide most of the color - but a living landscape is not about color, it's about creating habitat, and this habitat requires us to incorporate native grasses. It is true that the vast majority of grasses, and their graminoid relatives, are wind pollinated. They do not provide nectar and pollen for the most part, but despite that they are significant. More s
Read more