Rogerland, Deer and New Pesticidal Threat to Bumble Bees

About a week ago, I had the opportunity to visit Rogerland, a private garden located in Arlington, VT.  It's a whimsical creation based on formal English gardens but reflecting the eclectic interests of its owner, Roger Cooper and those of his late wife, Sandi. Among its more uncommon features are a USGA regulation putting green, a chess board and    a British bowling green.  There are the usual ornamental plantings, of course, but it was   the  vegetables that I wanted to see!

Rogerland's Vegetables.  Photo: I. Stephens

Now, your vegetable garden as well as mine, probably doesn't look much like this. The planting bed frames are granite and the fencing and trellising are custom designed and fabricated on site.  That's really cool.  But, what is really neat about Rogerland in total, is that Arlington, VT  does not have a deer problem. It's not because these Vermonters shoot deer or run them down on snowmobiles, it's simply that there are no suburbs and actually relatively little agriculture in this area.  

Some of the staff commented to me that the deers just like to live in the woods.  That is partly correct. Deers do like to bed down and hide in woods, but there is not really very much for them to eat in the woods -- unlike much of Rensselaer County, NY where we sustain unnaturally  high deer populations.  Hopefully, for Rogerland's sake, the  Arlington, VT area will remain under developed...  

Bulletin:  New Pesticides Also Threaten Bees

Research recently published in the British journal, Nature, reports that new pesticides based on sulfoxomine-based chemicals now being promoted to replace neoniconoids (think Roundup) are not really any better.  Bumble bee colonies exposed to these insecticides   failed to thrive.  [FWIW: The EPA cleared two sulfoxomine chemicals back in 2013 for use on fruits and vegetables under the trades names, Transform and Closer.  Click on the lead author's name, Harry Siviter, to see the  abstract of the Nature article.