Animals With a Sense of Humour

At some point in our gardening lives, we all have a story to tell about problems with animals. Even if it is just one incident, like a raccoon using your fence as a ladder to get to another backyard and rips your beloved Clematis off of the fence and half way out of the ground. Or they just lie down on your Lobelia and flatten it with no chance for it to repair for the rest of the season leaving a big strange looking hole.

Well for one of my customers in Toronto, Karen was having some unsanitary problems with Raccoons using her back yard as the place that they (ahem) go. So, after reading about the different possibilities on the net, she decided to put cayenne and chili pepper all over the back yard.

With 2 young girls to look after she accidentally left the package of chili pepper on the step and went to attend to other things. The next day she came outside to complete her task and found this.

She is convinced they are sending her a message, loud and clear! But even with all of the laughter that has unsued, she is still not so sure what to do. Clearly this method is just not striking fear into the minds and olfactory glands of the Racoons!