Annabelle,

I regret that I don't have the knowledge to answer your question, but given that I was rewarded just an hour ago with a water moccasin for my efforts at turning over a bale of hay, I'm interested in the replies. This forum is a fount of wisdom for people like us.

One comment: The clay you have there might be a blessing in disguise. As the unofficial family Gardener I've had to deal with both high CEC black clay and very low CEC and low organic matter sandy soil. I wd much much rather have that clay back. It had a high pH and some other problems but was excellent raw material for a growing things.

Charles

if you want some flowering trees, look at Chaste tree (vitex) or desert willow. Both do well here and flower.

Crepe myrtles are always good...but get the taller ones you can shape into tree form. There is absolutely no need to chop them like you see the landscape crews do every year.

Taller plants, hmmm. I'm going to link you to an Oklahoma Proven list...see what you like there:

Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Proven gallery

The vitex they show looks like a bush, but I grow mine in a tree form.

Thanks for the info about the soil Charles. Ours is the red clay. It is hard as a rock! We didn't add anything to it when we planted the tree. The people at TLC Garden Center said that the Chinese Pistache would grow just fine in the clay.

Those water moccasins are frightening when they are in your yard! I don't mind them one bit if they stay down in the pond :)

I went ahead and bought two crape mrytles from TLC today. One is the pink velour and I cannot remember the other one. It only gets about 8'-10' and has light lavender/pinkish blooms. We planted them this evening on the side of our home that gets mostly full sun. They look great already. We added a little garden soil and some fertilizer mix from TLC to the clay. The people at TLC recommended it. For now I am just doing whatever they recommend since I don't know much.

We removed the rest of the overgrown shrubs/snake hiding spots tonight! I don't know what I will replace them with..

I don't know that planting only higher plants will make much difference. Snakes venture out into the open just as much as they lurk underneath low-growing plants.

Removing low-growing plants and keeping grass cut low and not allowing weeds to grow underneath plantings near the house will give the snakes fewer hiding places, but that doesn't mean the snakes will go away. It just means they might be easier to see. When you live in a snakey area, you're going to have snakes. There's just no way around it, and don't waste your money on commercial snake repellent products because they don't work.

Some of my worst snake encounters are with venomous snakes lying right in the grass, on the gravel driveway, on or near the porch steps or in the garden pathways between raised beds. When you live in a place where venomous snakes are abundant, you'll always have to deal with them. We've lived here 15 years now and still encounter just as many venomous (and non-venomous) snakes now as we did when we first moved here. We are careful to keep the grass in the yard cut short so at least we might see them before we step on one.

The most important thing you can do to discourage the snakes is to do whatever it takes to ensure you don't have free-ranging rodents hanging around your yard. Snakes eat field mice, rats, voles, gophers and other rodents, as well as small creatures like lizards and frogs, so you can discourage snakes from hanging around by doing what you can to discourage rodents and small animals of all kinds.

We had a decorative lily pond in our back yard from around 2000 or 2001 but didn't have water moccasins in it until around 2008. As recurring drought dried up the creeks and ponds on our property, the cottonmouths moved to our lily pond. We finally let the pond dry up last year and are in the process of filling it in this year because the cottonmouth snakes are just too dangerous to have around. It isn't that they would be there 24/7, but once the heat got really bad in July and August, they were in the pond constantly. I finally gave up my beautiful lily pond because I felt like as long as we had the pond, we'd have the venomous snakes. We'd had common old water snakes in the pond forever, but I could mostly ignore them. You cannot ignore venomous snakes.

I second Lisa's suggestion of the chaste tree. We have one here---right by the former lily pond---and I've never seen a snake in it or under it. Ditto for desert willow (which is not a desert plant and also is not a willow). Crape myrtles pruned tree form will do just fine, and there are new lines of them with dark foliage that are just gorgeous. We bought three of them last year, either at Lowe's or Home Depot (they each carry different lines of crape myrtles with dark foliage). I don't see snakes in or under the Burford hollies, which we left in their natural shrubby shape, very often, but the snakes frequently climb our fruit trees, wax myrtles, Possumhaw hollies (pruned tree form) and oak trees. They also climb virtually everything in the veggie garden, including caged tomato plants, and seem especially fond of lying in the area where we grow corn. I also have had snake encounters with snakes that are on top of lawn furniture and on top of the shade cloth errected over the pepper plants to keep them shaded during the hottest part of the summer.

Snakes like to climb and some of my worst freak-out moments have been when I am walking under a tree and find myself eyeball to eyeball with a snake. So, learn not only to watch where you put your hands and feet, but also keep your eyes open when walking beneath or standing beneath a tree or a shrub pruned tree-form.

If you have small children or outdoor pets, you might want to put up a snakeproof fence, which likely won't be 100% snake proof but might keep the snakes out of a designated children's play area or dog pen. If you Google snake proof fence you should be able to find directions for how to install your own using quarter-inch hardware cloth. It has to be buried 6" underground and installed at a certain angle to keep out the snakes.

At one point we had a really cute Peter Rabbit Garden for our son's then-stepdaughter, who was about 3 years old when we built it. We put up bird/deer netting stapled inside the picket fence in an attempt to keep the snakes from crawling between the fence pickets and coming into her little garden. It worked better than expected. Apparently the snakes either couldn't see the netting or thought they could crawl through it and then would get trapped in it. I think the openings in the netting were 3/4" wide. I didn't like finding a dead snake stuck in the netting, but it sure was better than finding a live venomous snake too close to a 3 year old child. We have 1" chicken wire attached to the bottom of our veggie garden fence and it doesn't do anything to keep the snakes out of the veggie garden. I had a nice, long snake in the veggie garden with me yesterday afternoon. It wasn't allowed to stay.

Good luck with your snake problem. I just went ahead and landscaped with plants of all heights because the snakes are so abundant here that I didn't feel like it would matter what I used. I see them in the yard in the grass ten times as often as I see them in the shrubs up by the house, but we have cats and the cats control the rodents pretty well so maybe there's no reason for snakes to lurk around close to the house itself.

Clay soil normally is incredibly high in nutrients. All you have to do is work in lots of organic matter like compost, composted manure, pine bark fines, soil conditioner (the one I buy is a blend of pine bark fines and humus), peat moss, etc. to break up the clay and plants will grow like mad in it. After 15 years of amending our soil here, I can almost forget how awful it was when we first started.

Charles, I don't touch bales of hay between April and December for that exact reason. I've had too many snake encounters while lifting or moving bales. Our neighbors lost a good ranch dog when it walked between two bales of hay and a rattlesnake that was in or on one of the bales bit the dog. The vet couldn't save it. If I absolutely have to move a hay bale during snake season, I use a hay hook, a garden rake or something similar to drag it off the pile of bales and drag it along on the ground a bit. That usually scares off any snake (or other creature) that was in, on or under the bale. I used to keep breaking apart bales of hay in late spring to use as mulch even though I knew there was a chance a snake might be in there. After I found myself with a small (non-venomous) snake in my hand one day, I stopped handling hay after March 31st.

Finally, if y'all discover possums lurking around, put out a food dish for them, name them and buy them gifts for all holidays and their birthdays. Possums kill and eat venomous snakes. I've developed a real appreciation for possums since moving here. Possums have, in fact, developed some sort of tolerance for snake venom that someday may help scientists figure out a better way to help humans bitten by venomous snakes.

I'll link the kind of crape myrtle I mentioned that has dark purplish-black foliage.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Black Diamond Best Red Crape Myrtle

Dawn, now I'm scared to ever walk in my yard...and I have never even seen a garter snake in my yard!!!

How do you DO it??? I'd hide out in my house and never leave.

Where I grew up in Colorado, rattlesnakes were the only venomous snakes, then we had rat snakes (bull snakes?...not sure) and I saw a few baby racer snakes (I think). We had a normally dry river bed behind our acreage. I never saw a rattler, but they were around. My sister ran into one sunning itself on the neighbor's porch. My mom hated anything that slithered and would kill any snake she saw, including "good" snakes. Dad would get mad :)

It is all about training yourself to watch where you put your feet. I have to be aware of what is on the ground where my feet are about to step, while simultaneously knowing what is near my hands....and my head....and my body. Either I have developed nerves of steel by this point.....or I am insane. Take your pick.

I had plenty of snake warnings yesterday from Mother Nature, you know, and I was watching for that snake....but I turned my head for one minute to talk to Tim and when I turned back, there that slithering serpent was....in the pathway staring at me with an expression that either said "Oh crap, it's a human" or "Get out of my way".

My warnings? FIrst a Mississippi kite kept making these long swoops down to the road, then it would fly back up, and then it would swoop down, and back up, and screeching that shrill sound they make all the while. I stood and watched, but from the garden, I really couldn't see the roadway, so I figured a snake was crossing the road or lying in the road sunning itself. Three or four minutes later, two blue jays started having a royal hissy fit just outside my garden fence, where we have a small retention pond that catches runoff from the garden (Ha! As if it ever rains heavily enough for rain to run off.....). The blue jays were screaming and dive bombing something in the pond. I walked to the edge of the garden fence and stared at the garden pond and couldn't see a snake. Once I was there looking, the blue jays flew away. I shrugged and went back to my task, which at that moment involved weeding the asparagus/strawberry bed and picking strawberries as I worked my way along.

So, when I spotted that snake, it wasn't a huge surprise because twice the birds had warned me it was coming. I saw it and all I had to do was holler "Tim!" and he knew from the tone of voice that I had an unwanted visitor. He came and fetched it and took it away.

Living here in wildlife heaven/wildlife hell (some days it is one, other days it is the other) certainly has changed me. I only wear practical, sturdy shoes---no open heels or open toes and certainly no sandals. When we leave the jungle here to go to town, I find myself staring down at my feet as I walk across a concrete parking lot, and sometimes even when walking in a mall....or Sam's Club or CostCo. You understand what I am doing, right? Yep, out of habit, I am watching for snakes. My mind seems unable to switch off when we go to a more civilized place where I am not likely to step on a copperhead or rattlesnake. My brain has been trained to expect snakes everywhere.

To be fair to the snakes, we've only lost 5 or 6 cats to them in 15 years, and none of our dogs have died after being bitten, not even after being bitten by a timber rattler. Our vet has saved another 4 or 5 cats that were bitten, including one whose entire face was paralyzed for a prolonged period last summer, with the paralysis preventing her from closing her eyes for about 3 weeks. Our vet is a saint and a miracle-worker. All my friends say I must be living right because for all the time I am outdoors, I've never been bitten. I've stepped on or over venomous snakes a handful of times, and almost stepped on them many times. Certainly I have the luck of the Irish, or someone is watching over me!

I hate snakes and never will get used to seeing them. I am pretty good at spotting them nowadays and at avoiding them. I shudder when I think of all the years I blithely wandered all over our property with little regard for the danger. I am pretty sure my friend, Fred, was sure that something was going to kill me in the woodland those first 3 or 4 years because every time he and I talked, the conversation ended with him warning me to be careful. I'm a lot more careful now than I used to be.

When we moved here, our minds were made up that this would be our forever home. I still feel that way, but I do think that if there was any one thing that might send me fleeing back to live in an actual city or town, it would be the snakes, or some of the larger predators.

Believe it or not, but just a couple of weeks ago I was sliding my hand (blindly) under almost all the sections of stray bale hay that I'd laid down on the ground in the garden. Had to pick them up and move them around. (Hope no one gets nightmares from reading this -- I certainly got a little shiver after reading the posts here). Seems that I had devised an almost perfect strategy for getting bitten, especially as we've found copperheads in various places on the place.

Lisa, I want to thank you for that Oklahoma proven link. We had "Texas Superstars" in Texas, but I had no idea there was a similar, and more detailed, list for Oklahoma. I'm trying to find a fairly grasshopper-resistant shrub/bush to plant as a hedge all the way around the new garden. I was so traumatized by how the grasshoppers annihilated my garden 2 years ago that I've become a little obsessed with a strategy to thwart them. My idea is that a tall-enough encircling hedge of shrubs that grasshoppers aren't that excited about combined with ranging poultry might work because: except for the hoppers that fly completely over the hedge those that land on the shrubs and crawl their way through to the other side will give patrolling poultry ample time to pick them off. I know they can catch many of them in the open, but this may make it much easier for them. It's based on the chicken "moat" them coupled with a hedge plant that the hoppers don't *love* else it'll be a skeleton very quickly. I know this is off-topic, but Lisa's post gave me a good opening.

Also, if the hedge is tall enough and the right distance from veggies on the west side it will also give some shade-relief to those plants. Comments or thoughts? Does this idea have any merit? Should I go to another thread?

Charles

Charles, I have no idea but I have to admit I giggled at the term "chicken moat."

Mia, I got to wondering what was funny about it, and then I chuckled too. Now, thank you, I keep getting a mental image of a moat made entirely of chickens.

Anyhow, below is a Mother Earth News article on the concept. Not sure if I like it best or the Colorado State article I read about it, that employed it around a community garden. Google will yield various info on chicken moats.

Here is a link that might be useful: Chicken Moat for Pest Control

Chicken moats are real and legitimate and people who use them swear by them. : ) I even saw a photo once where someone put a tunnel underneath their driveway as part of their chicken moat so the chickens could travel safely beneath the driveway to reach the part of the garden on the other side of the driveway.

Now I'll have to find and link an example of a chicken moat. I'd like to put a chicken moat around my garden, but our old, spoiled rotten chickens are used to free-ranging and wouldn't take kindly to being confined within a moat. If I ever do it, I'll have to use a new flock of young chickens who've never known the joy of free-ranging.

Charles, Are you rural? You need guineas. I had them for a long time (more about them in the grasshopper thread) but after the year in which I had two cougar encounters on our property and we, and everyone in our very rural neighborhood lost all our poultry (and many lost cats and dogs)...and I'm talking in excess of 120 birds....I've never bought another flock of guineas. I was really attached to them and losing them one by one over the course of the summer was really painful.

I haven't found any kind of shrub that grasshoppers won't eat. In our worst year here, they ate the young fruit trees, including the bark, the leaves, and the fruit (but left the pits hanging from the stems), and they even ate holes in our fiberglass window screens, the cotton rag rugs on the wraparound porch, etc. When they are hungry, grasshoppers will eat anything and everything.

The dog we had when we first moved here would eat a grasshopper now and then, but none of our current dogs do....and he didn't eat enough to make a dent in their population either.

Our chickens control them well outside the garden, but I don't like to let the chickens free range in the garden in spring through fall because they'll peck at fruit like tomatoes, which doesn't make me very happy. I will turn them loose in the garden in the fall after the garden is pretty much frozen and dead so they can dig and scratch and eat insects to their heart's content. When I have winter crops, they don't bother them much once they are no longer tiny new plants.

Any task on our property that involves sticking an arm, hand or foot into a place where a snake might be lurking just doesn't get done at this time of the year. I do those tasks in winter. If I have to lift something, like a board or piece of sheet metal on the ground, I lift it with a stick because it is just about guaranteed a snake will be underneath it in the summer months. When you live around lots of venomous snakes, you learn to be careful. The closest I have had a venomous snake would be about 3" from my hand. It was in early March about a decade ago and it scared the fool out of me. If you don't start out being careful enough, you quickly learn to be more careful around places where snakes live.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Chicken Moats

Charles, you are welcome! and Annabelle...you hit upon a topic that will always gets lots of hits :) snakes and cougars :) *shudder*

Lisa

Well, that's not exactly what I was thinking... I was picturing a circular trench around your garden about five feet deep and wide (or how high can a chicken flap?) where you kept your chickens hungry and circling, like piranhas. And any time a grasshopper would dare to try to cross the moat, a chicken would swoop up, like Jaws, and bite it out of the air.

I mean, your way sounds like it might be slightly more effective in terms of pest control (because, how could you judge how deep to make the moat in order to keep the chickens from getting out but where the grasshoppers can't jump high enough to bypass them entirely?) but I think mine sounds like more fun. :)

Mia, As hot as it gets here, the chickens might just jump into the kind of moat you envisioned and float, or swim....or sink. Mine will wade in puddles in the driveway after a thunderstorm but they avoid the ponds so I don't think chickens are swimmers.

Now I have a ridiculous image in my mind of chickens reclining on inflatable floats in the moat, holding glasses of iced tea and wearing sunglasses, Every now and then they lift their heads high enough to catch a grasshopper trying to fly across the moat to the garden.

Meanwhile, the snakes just slip into the water and swim across the moat and get into the garden, and then the hawks swoop down and get the snakes while the chickens dive for cover. We've only had a hawk swoop down and get a snake a couple of times here, and one of those times, the rattlesnake killed the hawk and the dead hawk still held the venomous snake in its grip......and y'all wonder why I am a Nervous Nellie here in snakeville in the summertime? (grin)

Dawn

Mia, yours does sound like more fun. I might even be tempted to pay to watch that scene. But then I'd be happy to sit back and watch just about anything devour grasshoppers.

Some of the moats I've seen seem way too limited in width to be effective. I wonder if they're actually working, and if so it may simply be bc they don't get the hosts of hoppers that we do. If the moat is not wide enough too many hoppers will just fly past the chickens to the garden. So it must at least have decent width. But having my doubts that that wd suffice, I thought of the hedge. It should not be too tall else many hoppers will be attracted to its higher parts beyond the reach of the chickens. I've seen peach trees 8 feet high completely cleaned of leaves and peaches by these things. Granted, the shortness of the hedge will permit them to fly over it, but if the width of the "moat" is sufficient, I bet they won't have the smarts to think, "I'd better fly all the way over this space, including that green stuff, to get to that green stuff beyond." I mean, how many will fly completely over the hedge and moat? Some may, but damage will not be serious if few enough do that.

Charles

Wow. Y'all have some serious imaginations. Dawn, I'm surprised you don't garden in a suit of armor loaded down with various weapons. Sounds like a dangerous place.

Do you think that more comprehensive description of moat and hedge might work?

Oh, in my vision the chickens were definitely wearing sunglasses ... or scuba masks and swim flippers. Ha! We just filled our swimming pool after a long winter renovation, and I have found both a dead bluejay and mouse in the pool. I was wondering what was going on until I saw a big hawk flying over the other day - now I think he might be dropping them in the water for some reason.

Annabelle, with regards to the original topic (way off there in the distant past, LOL) do you want to create shade or are you looking for some visual interest so it's not so plain Jane? I had a Chinese pistache at my old house and loved that tree. Definitely want to plant another here at my new house. Crape myrtles are also great choices here, and you can prune them when they get older to have bare trunks on bottom like an ornamental tree (similar to the chaste tree Lisa posted below). My MIL has a chaste tree in her terrible clay yard and it is doing great. They attract lots of bees and wasps, so plant away from doorways/outdoor living areas.

Thinking of other things that have "bare legs," I recall a friend's mother had a beautiful variegated privet trimmed the same as the chaste tree above. I had un-shaped variegated privet at my old house, too, and loved it (but it was very bushlike and wouldn't meet your desire for visual inspection). It was vigorous and certainly not for tight spaces, but was a great filler for vases of flowers.

So I was monitoring Twitter...FOR WORK, HONEST! ...and this story popped up. If I have to start monitoring my bathroom....I'm moving to Alaska!

Here is a link that might be useful: Snake in a bathroom