This weekend, while tidying up around the garden, we discovered some lovely flora...
Hollyhocks
Gazanias
Potimarron Squash
And then we discovered the fauna...
The Good -- pollinators on the bronze fennel
The Bad -- but lovely green
And the Ugly
Look at this huge snail! Is it dead?
No! It's very much alive!
AAAAACCCKKKK!!!! It's coming right at me!
For what it's worth, the snail promptly fell off the cement block following this photo shoot. Wing Nut then picked it up by the shell and gave it a rolling tour of the neighborhood... Seattle hills are steep you know!
--Wing Nut
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11 comments:
Ewwwwww! I think that snail maybe crawled over from my garden (in NE Seattle). I can't bring myself to squash the big ones. What do grasshoppers do that is bad? I have just started seeing them in my garden this week, never before.
- Karen
http://greenwalks.wordpress.com
Whoa, what do you mean, "the ugly"?!! That snail is magnificent! Too bad we don't have snails like that around here to I could add them to my shell collection! Gorgeous hollyhock, by the way. Which one is it? I want it!!!
I hope Mr. Snail enjoyed his roller coaster ride/neighborhood tour!
"rolling tour" snicker snicker.
Well, all the snail got was a rolling tour - because he was neatly encased in that shell. But, WWWenches, I know what you Seattle people do when there's no shell...Ann Lovejoy wrote about her Slug Boots years ago!
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
You two are so fun! In several years, the snail will make it back up the hill;) You garden looks grand and I did notice the good dirt in the background. I bet we are the only people who look at the dirt as much as we look at the flowers. We know that's where the real work is.
How nice to see a hollyhock. They are such an English cottage garden flower. Have you ever noticed how many of them are in Victoria, compared to here? I think it is a cutural difference, though it may be partly due to their drier weather.
I like the snail too. So much more appealing with a shell...
-Jean
Hi Karen! Great to meet another Seattle blogger! Grasshoppers will eat anything green. They can do plenty of damage--think locust plagues.
Hi OFB. Yeah, I don't recall snails or slugs while growing up on the east coast. The hollyhock was in a "Country Romance" seed packet--mostly light and dark pinks and then this really dark one. Isn't it gorgeous?
He rollled quite a ways Garden Girl!
Hey Aunt Debbi. Maybe we should market our "roling tours"?
Hi Annie! Anne Lovejoy taught us how to do it!
It's quite a hill Anna, so hopefully a few years is just about what it'll take him to get back up!
Hi Jean. This is our first year planting hollyhocks. They are turning out much shorter than expected. But they seem super easy to grow and are lovely. We'll definitely be growing them in the future!
I love to eat escargot
(snails) in garlic butter:)
-Cheers from Canada.
We have been inundated with snails due to our awful weather! Apparently the news said it had been the best breeding year for snails for a long time. Now that is worrying!
Your snail appears to be Monadenia fidelis, the Pacific Sideband. It's native to the Pacific Northwest, has a beautiful shell, and can get quite large. I haven't been able to confirm this but if it is like most native molluscs it is quite harmless in the garden. (The slugs and snails that cause so much damage in the garden are all non-natives that were introduced on imported produce.) When I gardened in the PNW, I considered the Monadenias to be an attractive addition to my wildlife-friendly garden.
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