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I planted 6 blue butterfly delphinium that were doing great & blooming like crazy...until... a full on assault by a bunch of doves! Now the poor plants have been trampled almost to the point of dying. I do not know what the cause is. No sign of bugs, no seeds, no standing water... nothing to attract the doves. They have done this 4 or 5 times now. I have staked the plants up but they are still attracted. Does anyone have any idea what the appeal is? I was hoping for humming birds and got dive bombers instead! Thanks - A!
Is there any sand or tiny rock around your flowers? Could they be after grit? I see no other reason they would attack your delphiniums--the flowers don't appear to resemble the blooms of any of their favored seed producers. My delphinium is in a pot on my porch and has only attracted hummers even though I have many doves that come to my feeder. I'm very curious and would love to know why they are attacking your flowers too.
It could be the Doves are looking for the tender green shoots from the Delphiniums, I know when my young tender peas come through the soil, very young, small lettuce and some of my flowers just greening up get nibbled with the wood pigeons that perch in the tall tree's watching me tend these lovely green shoots.
What I have discovered to prevent this is, stick several canes into the soil in 3 rows (ZIG_ZAG fashion) then string black or any colour of cotton thread woven around the canes so that they criss cross the plants, this prevents the doves and other birds visiting, they dont seem to want to get tangled in the cotton, it wont harm them if they do get too close but believe me, all birds feel threatened by this.
I have hung up old CD's onto the canes but had to move these about every few days as the birds began to ignore the shinny CD's after a while,
Once your plants get taller, the doves should leave them alone but, you then have other things looking for a tastey meal like slugs / snails etc ha, ha, ha, it's never ending eh !!!!!
Good luck WeeNel.
