The Citizen, 2007-05-03, Page 27(MS) — As property values rise
and price tags on homes continue to
soar, an ever-expanding number of
homeowners are beginning to take
every aspect of home ownership
more seriously.
Perhaps nowhere is this more
evident than in yards across the
country. Whereas lawn care used to
mean a push mower and the
occasional sprinkling during
summertime droughts, nowadays
many homeowners hire
professionals to tend to their
property.
Knowing the cost will be well
worth it when it comes time to put
the property up for sale down the
road and for now they’ll have the
“best lawn on the block.”
As valuable as such professionals
are, once they leave and the sun goes
down, it’s often open season on your
yard for neighborhood critters and
creatures. Raccoons, specifically, are
the Bugs Bunny to many
homeowners’ Elmer Fudd, causing
numerous problems on a nightly
basis while remaining largely elusive
thanks to their nocturnal nature.
Thankfully, homeowners have a
handful of options when it comes to
keeping their yards and flowers safe
once the landscaper leaves and the
sun calls it a day.
• Return to the days of yore with
metal trash cans. The metal trash can
has gone the way of the cassette
deck and become largely extinct.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t
still be found and aren’t still useful.
Raccoons typically recall where
they’ve had success in hunting for
food and where they’ve failed. It’s
rare for raccoons to return to places
where they didn’t get food on their
initial trip.
Unlike plastic garbage cans, metal
garbage cans will be noisy when a
raccoon tries to get into them
looking for food. If you secure the
top of the can with a rubber band or
bungee chord, you should be able to
make it outside in time to catch the
raccoon struggling to get into your
can.
While raccoons aren’t afraid of
people, the raccoon will more than
likely give up once you come
outside, and is then less likely to
return.
• Install motion detectors around
the property. More people install
motion sensitive lights and
sprinklers to deter critters than they
do to deter criminals. Put these
around gardens and trash cans and
chances are the critters will scamper
off before doing any damage.
• Secure the chimney. Raccoons,
especially, enjoy nesting in
chimneys, as it’s typically a warm
place to nurse their young. If a
raccoon has already made a home
out of your chimney’s flue, this can
be a difficult situation. If you move
them while the newborn raccoons
are too young, it will likely be a
death sentence for those young
raccoons.
Should they die in your chimney,
you’ll now have a new problem.
Give the mother raccoon a few
days to clear out once she has begun
the relocation process. This is
important because raccoons actually
have several den sites within a given
area. If you close out the mother
raccoon prematurely, she will
damage your house in an attempt to
find her young. Once they’ve moved
out, secure whatever entrance way
was used.
• Check existing barriers. As
previously mentioned, raccoons are
not afraid or intimidated by humans,
but humans should be wary of
contact with raccoons, which will set
up shop in basements, crawl spaces
and just about anywhere they can get
in and out of easily. That heightens
the importance of checking barriers
for signs of intrusion. If a barrier has
been broken or it appears as though a
raccoon is now settling in, wait until
nightfall when the raccoon leaves
and then secure the area.
Never reach into a crawlspace or
area you suspect a raccoon might be
to see if the animal is there or not.
You’ll almost definitely become a
bite victim if the animal is home. To
determine if the animal is around,
lay flour on the ground outside the
crawlspace. If you see footsteps
leading away, then the animal has
likely gone out for the night and it
should be safe to secure the area.
• Install fencing. If your problems
are due to skunks and opossums,
perhaps fencing will do the trick.
Skunks generally aren’t climbers, so
a good fence should deter skunks
from restricted areas. Along those
same lines, opossums are not
diggers, so they won’t be able to dig
under a fence if they smell food.
Opossums are also somewhat easier
to deal with thanks to their
wandering nature, which makes
them less likely to seek out food
that’s not readily available to them.
THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2007. PAGE 27.
(NC)—Having a lush, green lawn
and healthy garden helps Canadian
homeowners create a backyard oasis
that family and friends can enjoy all
spring and summer long.
To help gardeners achieve a lush
environment while conserving
water, the lawn and garden team at
Canadian Tire has put together some
helpful tips.
Timing is everything
• Water your plants early morning
or late afternoon after the sun sets, to
prevent water from evaporating and
to maximize moisture.
Water can also act like a
magnifying glass and burn your
lawn, so waiting until later in the day
will ensure you prevent this from
happening.
• While weather conditions may
vary throughout the summer, the
general rule of thumb is to water
every four to seven days for between
one and three hours, saturating the
ground to a depth of six inches.
Be careful not to over-water the
lawn as it’s just as harmful as under-
watering.
• Using an outdoor timer, like the
two-zone timer, enables you to
program watering tools to run at any
frequency and for any duration of
Keep critters from creating havoc in yards
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Water conservation tips
for beautiful gardens
Continued on page 28