That Illusive garden plant
August 27th 2007 02:21
I often let the alpacas into the garden to mow the lawn for me. It is fabulous, as they munch the grass down like a bowling green, lovely and even. I can just sit and listen to them eat the grass - a much better sound than a conventional lawnmower and especially nice when you don’t have to push the thing around.
There are no grass clippings to collect, just a bit of manure if they decide they need to go. That gets tossed over into the vegie patch. When they’ve eaten the lawn down to the required level, I just herd them out again.
The only problem with this idyllic picture is there are so many garden plants which are poisonous to alpacas (and other livestock). The plants that aren’t poisonous seem to taste like chocolate to alpacas, so they munch them til there’s nothing left but a stick.
Hardly an ideal way to treat a garden and as a result, where the alpacas go, I have a few fruit trees and a lawn, that’s it.
They will munch the fruit trees, as high as those stretchy necks will reach, so the smaller trees aren’t in very good shape - pretty diabolical shape actually.
Where the alpacas don’t go, I can have lovely plants, but then I have to mow the lawns.
So, because I like having a garden, including a lawn, the hunt is on to find some lovely shrubs to put around which are non-poisonous but which don’t taste very good to alpacas.
My Google searches so far have led me wonder if the only plants that aren’t poisonous or highly palatable, are weeds – classified as noxious even. I can’t seem to find that illusive plant to complete the dream.
There just has to be a plant out there which will look lovely in my garden, preferably attract the native birds, won’t require too much looking after and which will co-exist nicely with my alpacas.
Anyone know of such a plant?
There are no grass clippings to collect, just a bit of manure if they decide they need to go. That gets tossed over into the vegie patch. When they’ve eaten the lawn down to the required level, I just herd them out again.
The only problem with this idyllic picture is there are so many garden plants which are poisonous to alpacas (and other livestock). The plants that aren’t poisonous seem to taste like chocolate to alpacas, so they munch them til there’s nothing left but a stick.
Hardly an ideal way to treat a garden and as a result, where the alpacas go, I have a few fruit trees and a lawn, that’s it.
They will munch the fruit trees, as high as those stretchy necks will reach, so the smaller trees aren’t in very good shape - pretty diabolical shape actually.
Where the alpacas don’t go, I can have lovely plants, but then I have to mow the lawns.
Not an alpaca in sight
So, because I like having a garden, including a lawn, the hunt is on to find some lovely shrubs to put around which are non-poisonous but which don’t taste very good to alpacas.
There just has to be a plant out there which will look lovely in my garden, preferably attract the native birds, won’t require too much looking after and which will co-exist nicely with my alpacas.
Anyone know of such a plant?
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