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| First - question about gopher damage to roses. I've done some googling, but can't seem to find pictures/ good explanation of what signs we'll see on our roses from gopher damage.
What I am going through right now is that they are destroying my dahlias and gladiolus. First I see wilting specimans of both, then just pick them up into the air, and they have no roots. They are completely detached (except for the few gladiolus tops that the gophers then pull into the ground. I am SO frustrated. I know they are knawing on my rose roots as well, but don't see external damage yet. What should I be looking for? Too many roses for cages. I've been putting bombs in every hole my border collie can open for me (approx 3 per day), but it's a losing battle. Poison or Traps? I have pets, but thinking that poison should be ok since it's underground? Any help would be appreciated. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Our cat managed to get rid of moles, etc. last year and I haven't seen any at all since then. LOVE that cat!!! |
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| I have an organic garden and don't spray but have (reluctantly) used poison to get rid of gophers, and it works. Usually a rose will show signs of distress or wilting when the gophers are at work, but even before that you'll see freshly upturned earth mounds. My husband uses an iron rod to dig down and find the gopher hole, puts in the poison pellets and then carefully closes up the hole. We've always had pets which have come to no harm, and I haven't seen dead or dying birds, amphibians or lizards, but I believe many people also use gopher traps with success. |
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| PLEASE DO NOT USE POISON. The problem with poison is that a poisoned, dying gopher sometimes heads for the surface. When THAT happens, it is very likely to be eaten by a cat, or a dog, or a hawk or an owl . . . Which will then be poisoned in turn. And which may well then in turn be eaten by something else, which is then poisoned, and . . . Not good. Use traps. I must say, though, that if you rid your property of every single gopher, that will not prevent the offspring of neighboring gophers from moving right in to the abandoned network of tunnels. Gophers do that. Our situation was bad enough, as re. gophers, but when the neighbors across the street built a swimming pool, and THEN a neighboring property-owner built an additional house, all of their gophers moved to our property. We have no possible hope of eradicating them, as they tunnel all through the neighboring hillsides. All we can do is plant defensively. I don't hate many living creatures. But I DO HATE GOPHERS. Jeri |
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| Do the traps actually work? I'm sure there are various kinds - any recommendations? I've seen plenty of mounds by my roses. Then we dig to the hole, and insert the gas. With its lack of success with the other flowers, I doubt it's working around the roses either. But I see no signs in those roses. I guess I can expect to walk out one day, and pick up rose bushes too? |
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| Baskets are the only real hope. You will never ever get rid of the gophers forever (unless of course you can dig down and put an underground fence around the perimeter of your entire property), and only baskets will keep them from being able to chew on the roots when a new batch of varmints comes in to replace the ones you have eradicated. Signs? unlike artichokes or glads or other plants, you will probably just see a failure to thrive. Only once did I see a rose (JacTan) go from healthy to totally wilted in a single day. After that I started digging up and replanting all of the roses in baskets, and new roses always go into the ground in a basket. We're talking over 200 roses here, so I have bought a whole lot of gopher wire !!!! The big roses tend to sulk the first year after being replanted and then repay the favor with increased vigor after that. Most of them showed tunnel activity as soon as they were shoveled up and out of the ground. |
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| Landlady is correct. Baskets (or very large pots under-ground, drilled full of holes) are the only effective means of guarding roses against gophers. If you have NOT had the pleasure of having gophers eat every bit if the roots of a rose, over-night, leaving it ready to fall over in place, I can pray that you never do. We have, and more than once. Roses are best left to grow with their roots unconfined. But if you live where there are gophers . . . Jeri |
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| I prefer using Victor 0625 The BlackBox Gopher Trap. It works very well. The local feed store that sold them to me suggest that I tie it to a string and stake it, because if left over night, critter of some sort may take it away. This was how I lost a few traps. Kasie |
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| Well, it's probably a bit of 'sour grapes' on my part, since I have bought and thrown away more traps than I have ever caught gophers with traps, but....as long as the tunnels remain, more gophers will simply move into the ones that the dead gopher was so kind as to build before he got trapped. The nice thing about a basket is that it protects the rose no matter how many gophers or voles or gophers travel by and want a munch or moles cruise by lookin' for bugs... |
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- Posted by kathy9norcal CA 9 (My Page) on Fri, Jun 22, 12 at 20:17
| I second jeri's plea not to use poison. Barn owls are wonderful creatures that can be killed by poisoned rodents. |
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| "I guess I can expect to walk out one day, and pick up rose bushes too?" *** I devoutly hope you will not. Can a budded plant be saved? I doubt it, but I don't actually know. I do believe, however, from personal experience, that if you live in gopher-country, you have no realistic hope of eradicating gophers, even with a bale of poison. You can kill them, but new ones will come, and you will in the process have killed at least some of your predators. That's just ... the way it works. Jeri |
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| Well - I bought 2 cheapy traps today, before reading the last number of posts. I'll try them without having much hope. I didn't even think about tunnel reuse - I bet that's my problem. I won't use poison - I started thinking about it and internalizing some of these posts, and would happily lose every rose I had before I'd put my pets in jeopardy. And we have so many owls out here - their lives are also more important than the roses. I will plant all new roses in gopher baskets. And perhaps, one by one, over time, I will start baskets... I appreciate the input. Helps one through the process... |
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- Posted by Kippy-the-Hippy 10 Sunset 24 (My Page) on Sat, Jun 23, 12 at 0:00
| Of all the roses we have planted, only one is in a cage, Ebb Tide. I put it in a location I know the gophers had visited in the past. Even with the cage it has had me worried that it was not going to make it. Well, I found out why it was looking so sad the other day when I went to scrape all the gopher dug dirt back in holes...the @#$% gopher had dug rings around the basket so all the water was running away from the poor plant. I did some compacting of tunnels between plants and pressed all the soil back around the rose too. Hopefully now all the water will stop running next door down the tunnels. I am going to spend Sunday poking around for more gopher tunnels. Thankfully, I have dug up almost the entire property one shovel full at a time, so it is pretty soft to dig in most places. I have been giving the gophers a "birthday candle" cause the pellets seemed to have no effect and they skip all the traps. Even though I have been rubbing them with rosemary to cover smells. Blast those gophers. I found some CA poppies minus all the roots the other day. |
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| Oh Kippy, I do feel your pain. Three years ago when I discovered the extent to which gophers and voles had populated the unseen regions under my property, I thought it was time to pave paradise and put up a parking lot. However, given the choices, I went for the digging up. I admit to a gleeful thought or two when I can trace a tunnel right up to and around a basket, but it hadn't occurred to me that that might lead the water away. I will have to pay closer attention. One thing I can tell you is that for at least a few years after planting or replanting a rose in a basket it is very much easier to move if you decide to. And a good hoe is your best friend for demolishing tunnels. I still hope that eventually the gophers and voles will decide that there simply isn't enough real estate between the baskets to make it worth it.....HA!!!! Meanwhile I do wish I had bought stock in the company that makes those 100' rolls of gopher wire. I have bought at least 10 of them.... |
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- Posted by peachymomo Ca 8 (My Page) on Sat, Jun 23, 12 at 11:50
| I also live in gopher country and have opted for cages or raised beds protected by wire at the bottom. But I have heard stories about people who keep their properties clear using traps, it's just a matter of persistence. You have to making patrolling for gophers and killing them one of your daily or weekly chores - some people develop a passion for it. I read a neat article about our local 'Gopher Guy' a while ago, it's a fun read if you want a glimpse into the world of gopher hunting. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Gopher Guy
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| Peachymomo, we might be neighbors, and I have a friend in Forestville who does exactly what you are talking about. He keeps lots of traps set all of the time and keeps count of each and every varmint that he eradicates. It really can be done....I just never quite got the knack for setting the traps without mangling my hands, losing the darn things, leaving them out to rust, and otherwise wasting my time and money on them. Mostly I think I just didn't really have the heart for hunting/trapping. Not that I don't wish every gopher dead, but I still am always repelled when I have to see them that way... I should encourage trappers, because I do admire them. I'm just not one of them.... |
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| It's important to understand gopher behavior. They dig a "main" tunnel and then dig off of that main tunnel to eat rose roots, store things, make a nest for babies, etc. They may use the side tunnels only once, then block them off. Gophers are territorial. They patrol that main tunnel every day, looking for intruders into their territory. Now, once you know that, trapping them is pretty easy. You need to find the main tunnel, then you put two traps into it back-to-back--one trap facing one way, and once facing the other way. One or the other will get the gopher. What I have found critical for success is putting down the traps as soon as you start seeing piles, because the gopher is most vulnerable when it starts digging its main tunnel, because that main tunnel is so small. I usually kill the gopher within, literally, an hour if I put down the traps as soon as I see piles of fresh disturbed earth. You cannot wait. You cannot rationalize it and think "oh, it's gone somewhere else". You must act immediately, because the bigger and more complex the tunnel system is, the harder it is to find the main tunnel. Keep in mind the main tunnel may not be a straight line. I use the black hole trap. It is more expensive but also easier to set and reusable. I've been using the same two traps for 10 years and they still work. You have to get over the ick factor. When it comes to gophers, you have to be Lady MacBeth. |
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| Hoovb, you are making me laugh. I know all that. I have read that at least a hundred times over the past 30 years or so. That doesn't make it easy. I also know how to re-plumb the bathroom, run the electric wiring, and hang sheetrock, but knowing "how" and being able to do it (regardless of the ick factor) are different things. Aptitude is what it is and not all of have it for everything. I cannot trap gophers....I am a complete failure at it. I can grow roses; I can't grow streptocarpus. Some things just are not for everyone even when they "know how". Once more: I cannot trap gophers. I have tried. It is not in my skill set. It should be, but it isn't and I am just gonna live with that.... For anyone with my dismal lack of trapping skills: go gopher baskets !!!! :-)))) |
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| We were walking back from the mailbox last week, with all the dogs. At our neighbor Mira's front lawn, the dogs all alerted. There was Mira's cat, George, sitting perfectly-still, watching THE BIGGEST GOPHER I'VE EVER SEEN walking around, quite casually, on the front lawn. Mira's grandson came out, and watched it with us, and we all said rude things to George, who ignored all of us. My DH went to get a large, flat shovel, intending to scoop the gopher up and toss it over the fence into the yard of a neighbor no one likes much, but just then, Mira's husband showed up with HIS shovel. Jay has a strong stomach. Jeri |
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| I cannot in good conscience defend the use of poison, but will say that in six years I have never once seen a dead gopher on the surface or had a pet become ill or seen dead wildlife on our property. I patrol the garden every day and use the poison the very moment I see upturned soil and of course seal up the hole. Fortunately we don't see a large number of gophers in the cultivated part of the property, which is only a fraction of the whole area, and in the uncultivated parts we simply leave the gophers alone. We have an abundance of rabbits and squirrels on the hillsides, and wild animals would have a harder time and less inclination to hunt in a closely planted garden. Birds of prey, including owls, fortunately will generally eat live prey they have caught themselves rather than carrion. Ingrid |
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| Very likely that gopher had already been gassed or poisoned which is why it was behaving so abnormally (i.e. being above ground). |
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| You need A CAT. Meeeiiiooow. Preferably female. I have known spayed females to be good hunters. Application of cayenne powder on the surface of the soil will keep her from pooping in the vege garden. Failing that, there are some landscape plants which deter, that is, poison, underground critters. Daffodils. Castor beans--not advisable if small children frequent your yard. My favorite is runner beans. They grow like Jack's beanstalk, will cover any unsightly spot, the flowers attract hummingbirds, the beans are edible, if not very tasty, to me, and the roots are highly toxic. |
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| I'd think that, Landlady, but there's no one around there who would have used poison. The properties on either side are just weeds. Hmmmmmm . . . Unless the guy across the street, next to us, is doing it. And THAT is actually possible. I had to threaten him with Great Bodily Harm to make him stop using RoundUp along the property line -- FAR too close to roses. And yet, he tolerates a wild bee hive IN his retainng wall -- I hope, if that hive Africanizes, they sting HIM and not me. So far, they're regular, gentle honeybees. Jeri |
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| And, Jeri, of course I could have that completely wrong, but I do remember that one of the very few gophers I ever managed to kill was one that was staggering around above ground soon after I had set off one of those gopher gassers. I always figured I had stunned the bugger into coming up for air and that was how I caught/killed him. As I mentioned on some other thread, I am currently using a dozen or so of those sonic spikes that take 3 D batteries to try to keep the gophers away from what space is available between baskets. I have almost convinced myself that they are doing some good, but .... only almost.... |
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- Posted by Kippy-the-Hippy 10 Sunset 24 (My Page) on Sat, Jun 23, 12 at 22:40
| Those Sonic spikes.... If they work I think it is just because they are so close together a fat gopher can't fit between them. In our garden they seem to say "the good roots are here" |
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- Posted by hosenemesis SoCal Sunset 19 USDA (My Page) on Sat, Jun 23, 12 at 22:41
| I like rodents. I'm cool with the roof rats, even when they build nests in my wall and cause me to have to tear part of my roof off. But I lost my tolerance for gophers when the woman down the street lost her horse because of a leg broken in a gopher hole. I used enough poison to kill every owl, hawk, and pet cat in Ventura County and STILL didn't get a single gopher. I used anticoagulants, strychnine laced grain, poison gas bombs. I thought about buying a Rodentinator, which uses propane to blow the dang things sky-high. What finally worked for me is plain old metal traps. I buy the good ones with the green coating, because they can be set, whereas the cheap galvanized ones at Home Depot are not well made and you have to re-bend the wires. You have to move fast when you see the mounds, as Hoovb said, and be persistent. You have to dig BIG DEEP holes right in the middle of your garden. It is tedious and time consuming and frustrating and new gophers move in and you have to trap them too. Otherwise, you are just feeding a booming population of gophers, unless everything you grow is in cages. You can eradicate them, though, in suburban contexts if you don't have open fields or slopes nearby. We were gopher-free for years when Mr. Brock lived next door because he was a master trapper. Now that he's gone, I have shouldered the heavy responsibility of keeping the neighborhood gophers at bay. Sigh. Here is a photo of what Hoovb described. The main tunnel is below the side tunnels, usually quite deep. Two metal traps are set, one for each side of the tunnel. Wire attaches them to the trowel so the rodents don't bury the traps. The traps will be pushed down the hole as far as my arm can go when I am laying face flat on the ground. It will take six or seven attempts before I push them far enough without setting them off. By that time I am ready to dig up the whole garden by hand and strangle each gopher personally. My collection of traps. The big one is not for gophers: |
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| Yeah, Kippy, I am really skeptical about the sonic spikes, too, but since I had a neighbor who claimed they worked (they probably sent all his gophers to my yard) and I was at the end of my rope I had to try them. Oddly enough the activity in the areas around where I have put them in the ground has appeared (for a few months so far) to have dropped off. Probably due to something else altogether, but I can always dream....and keep planting everything in gopher baskets ('Believe in Allah, but Tether thy Camel'). |
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| 'Believe in Allah, but Tether thy Camel' *** Should be the Western States Garden Motto. :-) Jeri |
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| hosenemesis - thank you for the visual. Well timed, as I'm mad as an angry nest of hornets. Insert handfuls of your best curse words here (mine are all starting with the 6th letter of the alphabet). Pink Peace laying on its side today - a new bareroot planted in February. Was beautiful, and so fragrant. )#@($*)@#(*$)#@*$ There are 10 other roses in this bed. Is there a bright side to this, anywhere? I retaliated with 2 bombs instead of one - felt better when I dug about 10 feet away at another hole, and the smoke started coming out and I had to quickly re-cover. More )@#(*$)@(#*$)@(#*$#@$. |
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- Posted by Kippy-the-Hippy 10 Sunset 24 (My Page) on Sun, Jun 24, 12 at 22:05
| I am with you Harmony The lawn and new rose bed were peppered with fresh holes. I dug several when I first got to moms today. I waited til I saw some fresh dirt getting pushed to close the now airy hole. Then....came a smoke bomb down that same tunnel. Hope I got the little beast. I shoved a hose down a different tunnel with the hopes of seeing a wet zone. Pretty sure I heard water coming out in the neighbors junk pile. So I did some fence digging and hopefully trashed those tunnels. Anyone know if those pin wheel/whirly gigs work? I noticed that one bed has been spared any holes, the one right under the cute metal wind mill I picked up. Oh and I dug up all the garlic and onions today....well where there should have been onions. Guess those were tasty to the beast. |
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