Varmints (alias: Save the bunnies! And the deer!)
Flowers!
In addition to the zinnias, impatiens, and celosia in the greenhouse, I planted some petunias and impatiens outside to spruce up the yard. Last month a rabbit ate half of my outdoor impatiens. I only wandered up to the window in time to see it tug up two of them, but inductive reasoning makes the rest of the tale pretty clear. I specifically bought impatiens because they're said to be uninteresting to rabbits, dang it! Mr. Kinase facetiously suggested buying a gun; I thought about it for about a minute, though not all that seriously. I mean, yes it's Tennessee and gun-ownership is not considered an automatic qualification for lunacy here, and I am in fact rather handy with a 0.22 rifle if presented with a stationary target, and rabbit enchiladas are really tasty, but fencing takes up enough of my aggression to leave me a gentle soul, and besides the rabbit never came back.
Until today, it seems. I got home to find the tops bitten off the rest of the outdoor impatiens. And all the foliage eaten from my bean patch. And all the developing pears at less than 4 ft high eaten from my pear tree. I fear that the botanical terrorist Thumper has returned and brought Bambi along as backup.
I have in previous years and without success tried sprinkling chili powder around plants.
So, save me from a life of hideous carnage. Keep gun sales down. Keep wildlife safe from my wrath. Just tell me how the heck I can keep my domain safe from hordes of maruding fauna without fencing off every little bit of dirt. Please.