Thursday, August 24, 2006

There's a mouse eating my orchids !!!

Who knew? Mice eat orchids! Except that up until now, I had sort of accepted living with the mouse in the house, as both Sandro and I were against using the glue traps, and the live traps hadn't been working. But now? Definitely closer to war!

It's plant of choice seems to be the Enyclia polybulbon, gnawing off the leaves of the new green shoots. However, it also ate two new green shoots of my Dend. monoliforme, and I am sure it is also responsible for the teeth marks on my Sedirea japonica - little bugger!!

I went to Google when I first suspected, as there were mouse droppings around my plants, and found the following info that led me to confirm my suspicions!

From a Garden Web forum:
http://tinyurl.com/hkjxj

And from a UBC Botanical Garden forum:
http://tinyurl.com/gf97s

We had peanut butter in the live traps, so I am replacing with Dad's Oatmeal Chocolate Chips, and maybe I'll throw in some dog food for good measure. But if that doesn't work in the next few days... that mouse has to be gone before I go away for a week next week!

3 Comments:

At 4:52 p.m., Blogger pol said...

I like every single way of life,but nothing can touch my orchyds. A few time ago the mouses come down to my house. they taste all my plants, eat a few bonsai and I do nothing. When they touch my orchyds, I put the poison and kill completly the family.

 
At 5:15 p.m., Blogger Kati said...

Hah! Who knew mice eat soap too?? I certainly didn't until I found the evidence in my soap-making shelf. The unwrapped bars all had huge nibbles out of them and dropping everywhere. UGH!!

 
At 10:13 a.m., Blogger Naomi @ WCOE said...

An update on the mouse situation ... things appear to be under control. There was no evidence of any new mouse damage while we were away in Hawaii at the beginning of September, although I had sent the most delicious tasting orchids away to Sasha's for safekeeping (they happened to be the ones needing the most frequent watering). We caught 3 mice before leaving and since then have seen no new droppings or evidence of chewing near the orchids. Fingers crossed!

 

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