How?

The other morning I looked out of the bedroom window to survey the driveway plants. As you may have read, it's getting quite tropical out there, and it's a nice way to start the day. I also like to check for any raccoon damage from the window first -- the up-high perspective gives me a quick overview so I know what to expect when I go out there. It's less shocking that way.


This particular morning something looked weird. Not being fully awake it took me a moment to figure out what it was: a couple of my large pots were laying on their sides!


***


Now we did have a storm during the night -- I remember hearing thunder, and it appears to have rained, but a quick survey of other potted plants (bamboos mostly) showed that they were all still upright. The papyrus and my plum tree were definitely not though.


So if this happened from wind, it was quite localized. Maybe the wind was just from a slightly different direction as it normally is, and these two pots were the only ones that were easily tipped in that direction?


My other theory is that raccoons (I blame almost everything on them) could have climbed up on the edge of the pots, tipping them over. The plants are quite top-heavy right now, as the soil in the pots is rather dry (I noticed as I picked them up).


The problem with this theory is that I'd expect one huge plant tipping over would be enough and would have scared them away. Perhaps not... maybe the papyrus was the only one tipped, and it fell into the plum tree, knocking it over too? I'm not certain that raccoons were involved, but it's a strong possibility.


Luckily neither plant was damaged when they tipped, and no innocent plants were crushed underneath, so no harm done. They were easy to pick back up too.

I'll probably never know how this happened. It's just another one of the little mysteries that you find all the time in the garden.

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Gerhard Bock (Succulents and More)  – (August 21, 2011 at 11:20 AM)  

Funny how you blame everything on raccoon. I blame everything on rats. In my case, I would have envisioned a whole batallion of rats climbing on the pot, tipping it over :-).

Anonymous –   – (August 21, 2011 at 12:30 PM)  

Here the squirrels get blamed. But at the farm, pot tipping is almost always the wild deer, that or the resident retriever in pursuit of said deer.

Janet  – (August 21, 2011 at 12:30 PM)  

I'm going to start a "Be nice to racoons" society. Of course we don't have them but we do have rats...

Alan  – (August 22, 2011 at 9:36 AM)  

Oh, I'm nice to the raccoons and enjoy seeing them around -- they're just too mischievous and inquisitive sometimes. Especially the young ones.

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