Vinca poop

I was recently clipping my hedge for what I hope to be the last time this year! I talked about that long Hedge a while back and some of you suggested letting it grow as it would not get too tall. (click on the underlined to read about the hedge) I tried that theory and the hedge got taller then the retaining brick wall so it has to be clipped to look correct. I was hoping this experiment would turn out to be in my favor but no such luck. One thing for sure, with the drought, the hedge did not grow so quickly thus, me only having to clip it twice this year! My Back and Arms thank you Mr. Drought!

I was knee deep in clipping the hedge when my eye was drawn to something on the wall in front of the Perwinkle (Vinca). Lets move in for a closer look shall we?

Hum, now just what kind of critter let this poop on the wall? It resembles the bat poop we would find below the attic vents when we had bats living in our vents. The replacement of the vents and no more bats. We miss our bats but we will talk more about bats closer to Halloween time...

Have lots of creepy crawlies been gathering at the Vinca each night for parties? Have the Moles and Voles been planning their interstate projects on the wall? Just what could this poop be from? Ah, ha! I found the source of the poop! It is Vinca Poop! Yep, the seed pods of the Vinca are opening up and releasing seeds below. I had always wondered how those things reseed themselves and this is the first time I have ever noticed the pods or the seeds on the wall. I must pay closer attention to such fun things.

I have put a circle around a green pod so you can identify it while on the plant. This pod will dry out and then open up to release the seeds.

I decided to try my luck at saving some to scatter about in the butterfly garden. So I stopped working on the hedge and got a paint brush and swept the seeds off the wall and into a container. I held the container up to the seed but could not do that for taking these pictures. The Saint was not home to help the photographer.













I collected quite an amount of seeds and plan to continue to sweep them up as I see them on the wall.
Look at the hedge clippings in the container. It was next to impossible to not get them in the seeds. I will pluck out the debris when I have time to sit and do nothing else.


The seeds are super tiny about the size of an ant! See the blurry one on the tip of my finger? It is blurry because if I backed off to far, you could not see it at all. This close and it is blurry. Oh well, you can see how tiny the seeds are with this blurry picture.

Here is the planter that I took the seeds from. As you can see the planter is full of Vinca in colors of White, Pink and Purple. The purple were the only slips that I planted this spring. The White and Pink are self seeders. Notice how they have jumped the wall and are in the other planter to the right.
I will talk more about this planter another time but just wanted to share this great discovery of VINCA POOP, In the Garden...