I got a surprise with my potted mini-rose

[Muggles]

On Valentine's day, my husband bought me a potted miniature rose. It had white blossoms with a pink flush to the petals. I put it in my bathroom under the skylight on the shelf, and it is doing fine.

This morning, two days later, I got into the bathroom and found a hitchhiker slithering on the carpet floor between the sink and tub area. It was a common grey garden snake that was about 7 inches in length! At first, I thought it was an earthworm that had come out of the dirt, but then it moved and raised it head up looking at me looking at it!

EGADS! It's not an earthworm! How do I catch the thing? LOL Well, I finally caught it after it tried to get away a few times, and I put it in a jar to get a better look at it. Yep ... its a baby grey garden snake.

I ended up taking it to my daughters house because she home schools and the oldest granddaughter wanted to document all the details for her own curiosity sake. She was more excited about documenting it than I was when I found it crawling on my bathroom floor.

Part of me wonders if it really found its way out of that mini-rose pot, or if it got in some other way!?

[songbird]

Muggles wrote: ...

if it is one of those dark/black plastic potted types with holes in the bottom those can easily attract small snakes as a home considering they are often warmer and have gaps in the bottom where they can hide.

closer inspection of the pot may give clues...

songbird

[Muggles]

It is a terra cotta colored plastic pot with holes in the bottom, and that plastic pot is sitting inside a metal decorative container that has no holes.

Geez ... I've purchased similar flowers dozens of times and never ended up with a baby snake. Now, I'll have to check every one I want to buy for snakes!

[songbird]

Muggles wrote: ...

to me that would be a bonus. i like snakes. :)

songbird

[Terry Coombs]

  Depends on what kind and where . Copperheads in the rose garden get dead .

[Frank]

No problem with poisonous snakes here but my wife is deathly afraid of them.

[Terry Coombs]

  We're not particularly afraid of them , just think there are some places they don't belong . It was pure chance that I didn't get bit while cleaning up some leaves and clutter while building the deck . He/it struck the piece of glass in my hand ... big'un too , over 30" . That makes 3 in the last 5 years , another was in the wood pile , and one in some firewood out in the orchard that I was moving to the woodlot .

[Muggles]

Well... those snakes are good for the garden, but the last place I expected to see one is crawling on my bathroom carpet. lol

[Muggles]

So, how do you go about checking leaves and woodpiles for snakes? Do you have a 10foot pole?

[Terry Coombs]

  No , you just look carefully before you go sticking your hands in there . Problem is that copperheads are damn near invisible when lying still in a pile of leaves . I like to disturb leaves with a rake or something before putting my hands near . On the occasion I almost got bit I was picking up broken glass up next to the house , there were some leaves blown up against the foundation . I saw the snake about the time he hit the glass . The reason he was there is food . The bird seed feeders are close by , and ground squirrels and other small critters like to glean the seed the birds knock out on to the ground .

[Frank]

I sometimes had to go to a plant in North Carolina and coworker invited me for dinner and showing property told me not to step off lawn into adjacent field. Problem not only copperheads but ticks carrying Rocky Mountain Spotted fever. Copperheads must not be too bad as another coworker told me he had to take cats to vet several times because of copperhead bites.

We are said to have a few around here in an isolated area but only snakes I see a are black snakes and garter. Wife came running in screaming off the deck last summer as sitting there she heard a sound at the bottom a the deck and got up to see a big black snake caught in deer netting. Deck was 10 ft and snake was captured but she ran.

I usually see one or two every summer and have had to release 3 large black snakes tangled in the netting.

[Gary Woods]

Last summer, I had a large garter snake sunning himself on the gravel greenhouse floor. Hopefully he was after the mice that occasionally eat seedlings! I trap them, but never (of course) get them all. (The mice, not the snakes). A nice big milk snake would be even better!

Only barely related: has anybody else tried LED grow lights for plant starting. More pricy than cheapo shoplights (which I fitted with solid-state ballasts- worth it in lower power use), but way more light for the power use.

[songbird]

Gary Woods wrote: ...

not yet and probably won't any time soon. i just don't have the room for starting things here.

one of the factors from the previous lights was that they also put out a certain amount of heat which can be important for growth/germination. so in the end the energy savings may not be there if you have to make up for the heat differences.

if you've already spent the $ for new bulbs and ballasts i'd probably keep with those until the bulbs and/or ballast failed and were due for replacing.

we got almost 20yrs out of the shop lights/bulbs we were using.

it is really down to the math though in the end. if you use them enough to make it worth it...

our almost whole house light bulb switching to LEDs will pay us back pretty quickly and we have much better lighting now than before.

songbird

[Frank]

Looking at internet I think it best to buy LED lights designed for growing plants as their output is in the most useful part of the spectra for plants. You would not like them in the house for normal use as they would be a different color.

[songbird]

Frank wrote: ...

yes, and perhaps look into UV protection too that would be needed. you don't want to mess up your eyes or have skin troubles...

songbird

[T]

Hi Maggie,

Your poor husband!!!!

You can soak this for years. "You bought me a snake for Valentine's day! I am not even an ex-wife!" Poor guy won't know what hit him. When he starts to stutter "but, but, but ...", give him a hug and tell him you will eventually forget, in about 20 years so and next year's better not be a cactus.

Tell your husband I said "Oh Dude!"

-T

[T]

Hi Songbird,

Usually, pl;ants use red and blue for photosynthesis, but not always. here is a fun article on ti:

What colors of light are used in land plant photosynthesis?

The color of light used for photosynthesis depends on the pigment in the plant.For example, green plants' with chlorophylls and carotenoids have a maximum activity with violet-blue and red light. Basically, whatever color the plant is, that is the color of light that it is reflecting instead of absorbing and using for photosynthesis. If you click on the different links I have included, it will take you to different wikipedia pages that provide additional information.

So, basically, the color you see on the leaves is the color it is NOT using.

:-)

-T

[T]

Oh ya, plant light tend to leave off the green

[Muggles]

I think I would move the bird seed feeders away from the house. lol

[Muggles]

Well, I actually picked out the potted mini-rose plant. We were shopping and I always drewl over the flowers. :) I showed the video of the snake to the store and they wanted me to send them a copy of it! lol