Indecisive…

It’s great to work with plants and soil and his week has been productive – slightly. I wish I get extra time, like an extra twenty four hours in a day to get all my projects done. [SIGH] Anyways, I still have few plants to be repotted with cocopeat.

I’ve been having a strange someone digging my pots off late which would cause serious damage to my plants. Thank God they weren’t fatal, but my heart would break every time I see a plant flopped to a side with one of its branches cut, and the soil mix spread on the floor! Fury would run up my nose and out my ears and I’d so badly want to wring that strange someone’s neck of its head!!

I thought it was the squirrels as I had them creating disaster in the past and tried spraying chilli + garlic + onion extract which did the trick in the past, but the episodes continued no matter what. It would sometimes stop few days and again I’d find a planter or two desecrated. I thought it was the rats by their droppings but the garlic extract should have worked on them I thought. So I tried moth balls and toilet cleaner, which worked for a day or two and the episode continued…

Today when I went to water my plants, I found a HUGE garden lizard run away from behind my hibiscus pot. I saw that that pot was dug – shallowly. Nearby, this poor rose plant was half-uprooted and flopped onto one side. I immediately set her right and secured her well back into the soil.

Now, I’ve never heard of garden lizards causing havoc. My understanding was that they were gardener’s friends. Do garden lizards dig the soil? Or was (s)he hunting for insects n the soil? But how did s(he) manage to get the rose uprooted? Beats me… 

Or, could it be that it is a she and she was finding a spot to lay her eggs or hide her food? May be this is the first time s(he) visited my garden and it was not him/her in the past? I don’t know how to save my planters now. I am confused. I’d love to hear your thoughts…

Well, I also discovered this buddy feeding on my Adenium today.

Do you see him? No? Here's a closeup.

This Adenium was the one gifted by my friend two years ago on my birthday. Would this buddy destroy my Adenium?

Anyone know what kind of caterpillar this is? Do I let him be? Because I don’t want my Adenium destroyed, but I am not ready to kill a future butterfly either.

While taking a closeup of this guy, I discovered a teeny one in another leaf.

Is this guy gonna be a butterfly/moth too? Hope Randy or someone else can identify and help me decide about these two. 

 Oh, I almost forgot. I saw this guy feeding on my Jasmine last week and I was sure that this was a moth, but not cent percent, but I transferred him to a different pot of Jasmine that was not blooming. I forgot all about him and now talking about the other two, it reminded me of this one too. I hope he survived and became a moth/butterfly. Gotta check tomorrow. I am ashamed to say that I don’t know how long it takes a larvae to become butterfly. Off to Google…