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The Garden House (Devon, England)

The destinations are beginning to blur but looking at the tour guide booklet, I see that we are now in Plymouth. Today, we visited two gardens designed by Keith Wiley.  The first is The Garden House , where Wiley worked as Head Gardener for 25 years (from 1978-2003). The 10-acre estate was purchased in the 1940s by former Eton schoolmaster Lionel Fortescue and his wife Katherine. It was formerly home to the  vicars of Buckland Monachronum. The Fortescue's renovated the gardens and ran a market garden business and raised cattle.  The remains of some of the original buildings in the vicarage still stand in the garden and serve as a romantic backdrop in the Walled Garden - I loved the way they had massed ferns together. Just stunning! Surrounding the walled garden and venturing out away from the house are more naturalistic plantings  - Today, the head gardener is Nick Haworth, who was previously head gardener at Greenway , which we visited earlier.  Keith Wiley lef...
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Raccoon Round-Up

At first I thought they were cute. I started observing the little masked varmints about a year ago in my garden, usually at night, but increasingly during the day as well. I let the little guys go about their business and I’m sure our habit of throwing scraps out was welcoming to them. As long as they didn’t hurt my cat – they were fine with me. After all, I am a big animal lover.

About a month ago, I saw three baby raccoons playing around my waterfall. Adorable.


Then things started to get out of hand. They wouldn’t leave my birdfeeders alone and they have broken several, some beyond repair. Heck, the hummingbird feeders aren’t even safe because they love the nectar! Then we started hearing sounds in our attic. At first we thought it was probably squirrels but now we are wondering if it is the raccoons. That mystery is still not solved yet. Last week, I stepped outside to feed Isabella and heard a commotion of scurrying. I stepped back inside and observed a mother and five baby raccoons descending on the food dish. Okay, enough is enough! Our home is becoming "Grey Gardens II"!!!


My sister had loaned me a small cage trap so I tried to capture them but soon realized that the trap was too small. I called Animal Control yesterday and picked up a larger cage after leaving a $50 deposit. Last night I baited the cages and am happy to report that I caught three of them. They are crafty little buggers so this was not as easy as it sounds. I thought the mother would never go inside the cage and it was past 11 before she was captured. I took them out to a wooded area and creek about five miles from our house and released them. That is 3 down and 4 to go! Or at least 4 that I am aware of. The cages are baited tonight. I’m ready for action!

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  1. AnonymousJuly 28, 2007 at 12:13 AM

    Hey Phillip.
    Quite interesting about your Raccoon problem. I am sure you will be successful in rounding them all up in time. Watch out for those squirrels as well. They can do some considerable damage as they like bird feeders and attics just the same. That is speaking from experience on the squirrels as we had quite the bunch to roundup in our previous home as well. DW

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  2. SandyJuly 28, 2007 at 7:56 PM

    Just out surfing and stumbled across your blog. Beautiful garden and photography:).

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  3. CatherineAugust 16, 2007 at 10:56 AM

    I have a cat door that leads from my garage to the outside world. Recently I have heard some sounds in the garage that were not familiar. RACCOONS! I agree, they are real cute, but as you stated, things can get out of hand. I hope when your relocate these varmits that they are appreciative of your humane treatment of them...I am. :)

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