A deer immediately snacked on this. 

Winter is on its way out and I am counting down the days until spring blooms.

Our jardin is steadily being prepped for planting seeds: I’m slowly getting rid of major weeds and an invasive ground cover plant that I hate. After I finish adding compost to the soil next weekend, we are going to plant some of our first seeds of the year: sweet peas, nasturtiums, poppies and zinnias. Inside, we’re going to start some snapdragon seeds.

For now, though, I’m looking for garden inspiration from the small pops of color that surround me. A visit to the butterflies on my birthday, a trip to the Garden Show in Seattle and the unknown buds that are popping up around the garden.

Nothing better than a tropical butterfly room on a cold winter day.

While we plan our flower garden we are also trying to determine natural ways to deal with pests like deer. Hopefully most of our flowers will be deer-resistant—like foxglove, snapdragon, poppies, zinnias, yarrow and hollyhocks—and we’re planning on creating toxic-flower-barriers by planting them around those that might be a bit more vulnerable, like sunflowers.

Color inspiration from the Garden Show.

We recently planted two bare-root roses (one climbing peach-colored and one pale pink) and I’m excited to see them grow, but terrified of how they might get munched on by deer.

According to a recent article in the New York Times (Titled “On Staten Island, Feeling Overrun”) there are an estimated 30 million deer across the country that eat the equivalent of 15 million metric tons of vegetation — greater than the combined weight of all the aircraft carriers in the Navy.

I’m convinced half of those deer live in Port Townsend.

These have since been eaten.

The previous owner of our house planted some tulip bulbs, which started to grow only to be munched on by deer. Despite the sad tulips, I’m staying positive that the deer will leave most of our garden alone. All we can do is stick to toxic flowers and hope for the best!