Deep Down Diggers
- Julie Maxey-Allison | 10th Street
If you have never encountered a gopher or a gopher’s work, good for you! Many have not been so fortunate and have witnessed the devastation of gardens and lawns as these unseen critters whose habitat is underground create havoc. Being herbivores, their one pound furry rodent bodies head straight for plants’ roots for lunch. Maybe lunch every day. Or the gopher could be a mole very able to do equal damage. Moles do not identify as rodents, but as a member of the shrew tribe and prefer insects to plants and seeds. If they are actually possible to differentiate, a mole’s mounds are taller and are described as volcano shaped whereas gopher’s mounds are called fan shaped. Neither is good news. It’s tough to tell which is which but if your plants are disappearing, it is gophers that are dragging them down into their burrows. It may be a single player or, more bad news, they multiply. And, though gophers may move on, they certainly will not until their food source is gone and that could mean that they will have studded their entire preferred garden with dirt mounds.
Happy suggestions to urge them to relocate (of course they could have relocated from your neighbor) include making lots of noise that hurts their tiny sensitive ears, applying castor oil to the mound sites, choosing plants they don’t like such as rosemary, lavender or salvia. More serious solutions: if their holes that are not necessarily under their latest mounds can be searched out, precisely set traps. There is a wide and wild variety of gopher traps to choose among. Or, poison. If that main underground burrow is found, a strychnine laced poison is the most common type of bait and is lethal with a single feeding. Of course, this puts poison in the soil and in harm’s way to other animals as well. Less toxic and less effective baits are also available as are other feeding anticoagulants. Smoke or gas fungicides can be less effective because the gopher may simply cover the burrow. Take care when using either type of bait. If new mounds appear after treatment, well, try and try again. Or call a professional. Or consider container gardening or alternate landscaping. Again, if you have never encountered a gopher or a gopher’s work, good for you!