My fair city of Saratoga Springs, NY really feels like a city in the Adirondack woods. We are very close to the southeasternborder of the Adirondack Park, and the city is old enough so that there are numerous giant trees along the streets and in the yards. Many of them are evergreens. So when it snows, and the roads are whited out, and the spruces and white pines are draped with brilliant crystals, it feels as if I live in a forest.

All this may explain a squirrel population that verges on obnoxious. There are excellent places for them to nest. There is a rich diet of nuts that they eat out of the pinecones, as well as the banquet provided by gardenerscrabapples, feral raspberries and mulberries, beans. Ive even seen squirrels raid the lemongrass in my gardenjust yank out a small p lant and take off up a tree. There is also a squirrel highway among the branches and the utility lines. They can run along a line and land right in my biggest peach tree, ready for dessert.

The squirrels do a lot of gardening. I see it mostly with my bulbs, which are, of course, often a large plant wrapped up, in the off-season,in the neatest, most compact, rodent-movable packaging. My tulips, which I always plant in groups of five of a kind, get scrambled. The lilies are even worse. This year, I wound up with Asiatic lilies from my backyardorange, pinkin my front yard, where the Asiatics are strictly red, white, and purple-black. I also have two giant Scheherazade lilies as lone wolves in spots where Id never have planted them.

Though I wish the squirrelswerefussierin theircolor schemes, as gardeners, they do provide some valuable services. I have a few beautiful Brunnera macrophyllaJack Frosts in places where I didnt plant them. I dont know if the sq uirrelsmoved seeds or a bit of root, but these are beautiful, expensive plants that dont necessarily love being divided. Im glad for the extras.

And I have sunflowers in my yard. I have never planted sunflowers in this garden.Again, I wish thesquirrels were a bit stricter about tall plants in back, but nonetheless, the sunflowersarrival is an unexpected act of grace. I smile every time I walk by.