Why you should hang plastic snakes from your palm trees

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One of the best things that I've ever done in the garden is to hang plastic snakes from my palm trees. The idea is to discourage birds from digging in the garden, and it works!

Now don't get me wrong, I love birds. They're part of my garden. I love their songs and I love to see them flying around, and in the trees. But when they start digging gigantic holes in the garden, searching I guess for worms, that's where I draw the line! I've gone out to the garden to see what looks like World War I bombing, done mostly by the local grackles. They're big birds with BIG sharp beaks!

Over the years I've tried a lot of things to discourage that type of destruction, like putting down string, criss-crossed, with little pieces of aluminum foil taped to it, and which did nothing. And then I noticed that someone I follow on social media, who posts beautiful photos of his garden, had little plastic snakes. When I asked him why, he told me that they keep the birds away. And they do!

I started, a few years ago, with the tiny little snakes that you get by the bagful at the Dollar Store. But then I moved up to spending a whole dollar on a snake. They work great, and in my opinion, they look great, too. They seem to add a certain whimsy to my garden, and to be fair, a real tropical paradise would have snakes slithering down the trees.

I have several of them, and they all hang down from the palm trees. And all I can say is that the digging birds have decided to dig elsewhere!

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