Any gopher solutions?

Oh thank you bob! I particularly appreciate the list of things they stay away from and, yes, I'm adding to my succulent list constantly because they seem pretty safe. Everything else I'm potting up. Containers are so expensive! But it's either spend $60 on a container for your $30 plant or have the gophers get it once it's a $120 plant. My next project is learning how to make papercrete containers to save myself a bit of money and create my own "style."

You're a wonderfully witty writer......just wanted to say that. Made me laugh and at 8am that ain't easy.

BTW, I planted hundreds of daffodil bulbs in the fall and I can say the gophers are staying away from those areas. You can see one heap of mounds going right up to the edge of a daffodil bed on its way to the last banana left in the yard. They tossed a couple of the bulbs out onto the ground but then gave up and went away. Just thought Zuzu and anyone else who is trying this would appreciate that information.

Anyone else with plants they've noticed gophers don't go for?

Another thing.....it seems like they stay away from the ferns in the yard too. I haven't seen any evidence of them going for ferns when they've eaten everything else around it.

bob, it's a shame John Wayne has passed on, because I could see him starring in the move version of your story, which I totally loved! The sunset (or sunrise), the boy, the traps....the enemy....it's a Western classic! Thanks for sharing!

John Wayne, lol. Could this be John Wayne? This guy was hunting gophers today (totally unusual to see a red shouldered hawk on the ground but he was after that gopher!). He kinda walks like John Wayne.

Thanks for the lengthy and informative post, Bob. After 23 years of first-hand experience with these monsters and with the inefficacy of all the presumed solutions, I couldn't agree more with everything you say.

Stella, I think you're right about the daffodils, although they do have to be planted en masse to do the job properly. I tried ringing my favorite roses with 8-10 daffodil bulbs but that wasn't deterrent enough to save the roses.

As for the list of plants the gophers don't like, I can only say they're the ones I don't like either. Ever since I moved in, I've been trying to eradicate the previous owner's legacy of Arum italicum, blackberries, ivy, St. John's Wort, and Lemon balm. I've failed miserably and the gophers have been no help at all.

Since my one outside cat is now totally inside, I know I'm going to be inundated with the gophers. Pippa was one gopher catching cat! So 2 days ago I'm out watering andI hear rustling in the leaves under the trees/ tall shrubs and up pops this fat, sleek very healthy gopher trotting across the open ground. I didn't have a shovel or he'd have been a goner. He ran back in his hole, I jammed the hose in and hoped the water was faster than he was. Sure. Anyway, I could see where he's been looking around, up next to the house where I've never had any before, next to the Mexican feather grass, in the middle of Shasta daisies. Poured PineSol and used cat litter down his hole. This morning I'm sitting at the dining table reading, look out the French doors, and the little bugger sticks his head up,looks at me through the doors and I swear he was smirking! Among the things that have spread (and spread) that they never seem to eat on my property are geranium incanum, vinca minor/ periwinkle, erigeron/Santa Barbara daisy, sword ferns, centranthus/ red valerian, alyssum, leonotis, tradescantia/ the "wandering"one, crinums, and I don't believe they've bothered the Lindley's buddleja. Some of these things spread so fast that maybe the gophers can't keep up! But that's okay, too. If I can grow things that they like to eat and that aslo spread a lot, maybe they'll eat that and leave the other things alone. I know they love the perennial morning glory and it gets out of hand anyway, so it's good that they eat that. I'll have to go out and look around tomorrow and see what other things are spreading without wire to protect them, and doing okay.
edited to add...yes, lemon balm also

This message was edited Feb 10, 2007 8:20 PM

Bob,
According to a friend who also lives in Gopher Canyon, you also have a lot of rattlers, don't you? Wouldn't you think they'd wipe out the gophers?!

gypsy, strike Santa Barbara daisies. They will eat Santa Barbara daisies. But you're right, maybe they reseed fast enough to stay ahead of the gophers. I wish I could find that perfect plant that multiplies really, really quickly but the gophers just love. Then I'd just set them up with their own corner of the yard. I don't mind maintaining a 'gopher corral."

Gopher Canyon is East of me. Rattlers hang out in areas that haven't been cultivated nor civilized, etc.

We've never seen rattler in 22 years. Several gopher snakes, (who eat gophers) Owls (who farm gophers for food) and King snakes who eat gophers. Altogether we've seen maybe 5 snakes. Owls live in an old wind tower year round on neighbors field 200 feet from our gardens. They eat gophers year round 2 or 3 per owl per day. Often there are 3 or 4 owls in the tower. These critters can't solve the gopher migration problem though... wonder what it would be like without the predators....??


bob
:>)

That's what happens when I'm reading in a hurry! I saw the Gopher Canyon part..the friend who lives in Gopher Canyon is in the country club section and their dog has been bitten twice by rattlers. Another friend who lives above Pala Mesa has rattlers at her place repeatedly. I've only seen one here once this last year though our surrounding neighbors have had them turn up occasionally. We're in the Winterwarm area. We do have owls and I know they help tremendously. It's neat to be outside at night and see them come gliding through.

I was thinking about setting up a couple of barn owl boxes. They are around, I hear them, but haven't seen them on this property.

I have to go to church but will check in more on my favorite, depressing subject. I wire basketed a bunch of trees and I am tring my fishing line thing too, near every plant bastet or possible above ground entry I put wads of fishing line in all around and under, some of it wrapped around the wire , but I am hoping they will get all tangled and stuck in it while tunnelling they will die with severed body parts or be frustrated and leave. Those stricnine peas, turn into grass that I watch my dogs eat all around. As soon as I see it , I have to pull it, but one day? I need some other thing. I put a lot of my plants in bigger containers, cut the bottoms out, put wire over the cut out and fishing line all around where they may dig to get under the wire and i put heavy wire around the basket but I am going to try duck tape next.

We planted a Nolina bigelovii yesterday, among a half-dozen other natives. Hope it's one that they DON'T like!

Kathleen [just around the corner in Bonsall]

Hey most here are from Ca. , did you check out the round up on the Ca. site? I am doing a side of my yard that has been untouched in forever, so i decided to do a lasangna garden with wire first layed down, then all the layers. I am on the first layer but need to put a sprinkler system in at this layer before I go on.. I may put regular chicken wire before I put sod down in an area too, with some garden soil over it, then the sod. It is rediculous. It is more expensive too. Thank God the lasangna garden is cheap and ez. I put those peanutbutter poison sticks that dehydrate mice in the holes, every one I could find and I stomped other holes that I could not see because another person told me that the fruit gum and stomping out their tunnels, makes them get tired of redigging so they move on. I stomp everywhere I can now to crush them, but I still see new spots, but I will keep going.. The Carbon monoxide thing didn`t work because they just block it with dirt and go to another area.

I just finally dug out a huge grass clump that they demolished last year. Within three hours after I pulled it out they decided to excavate the area again and there are mounds around every plant in the area. Do you suppose they had a nest down there? I really did disturb them by digging that out. They had pulled what was left of the plant down about 8" into the soil and though it was no longer growing it was very difficult to dig out. I'm gonna try stomping down all the mounds; never thought out that annoying them but it probably would.....and I'd love to do anything to annoy those little buggers.

kaperc,

I have 3 LARGE bigelovii's, I put these in whenever they were four to five feet tall. Gophers never touched them as far as I know. All 3 are over 10 feet tal now.

Our gadens and house are in Bonsall too.

I have some seedlings that are very small (less than 2') the gophers haven't touched them.

If I may ask where did you find N. bigelovii? I haven't seen any for sale around here in many years. I ordered some from Fla 2 years ago.


Here is a picture of one of the bigeloviis flowering a few years ago. It doesn't flower very often, but it is very dramatic when it does.

I think the its roots are way too tough and stringy for them. They have to go through a lot to get to the inside tissue.

bob

edit comment
our posts crossed
Hi stellapathic must have been having a banquet when you disturbed them..!




This message was edited Feb 11, 2007 7:13 PM

This message was edited Feb 11, 2007 7:14 PM

I remember the lady just told me this last week, she said she`d send her kids out to stomp everywhere, she had a problem for sometime and she was sure that just got old for them. It is worth a try. My neighbor is an exterminator and he has none, he says and I have all his so he gave me the big story of how best to treat them with poison or with an exterminator like someone said,I think Gypsy about the wildlife company, I can`t find the link since it isn`t blue now. Anyway he said treat them as soon as you see fresh dug dirt and a new tunnel. He says they store food in certain areas and put it in a den for all of them, he says treating old holes may do nothing until much later if at all because he said that they don`t use the old dens unless their driven to, you kill them near fresh digs. What a nightmare. Devils.

Bob,

I got the plant at Las Pilitas on Friday and I think they had a few more. I was surprised at the root system, since the plant itself is not big. We get almost all our plants there, as we're trying to stick with natives - too much area to do a fancy garden, and it's not our style. We enjoy the natives, though with all southern slopes, they don't all enjoy our place! If the N. bigelovii works for us, I will definitely get a couple more.

Kathleen

gophers do not like my natives as much and my Algerian ivy or vinca major or minor either. They sure like grape vines and roses. Don`t like halls honeysuckle either but cold damaged them.

We saw some great egrets eating gophers after the first rain. Little buggers came up out of their flooded homes, and gulp! down the hatch! My DH videotaped it because we were sure nobody would believe it.

I've planted daffodils and garlic around areas I want to protect from the gophers, they don't think these taste good. My 3 cats do a good job of gopher eradication efforts. There's a house going up across the street, means we'll probably get some more during the construction.

I just don't even try to have a lawn. That makes the gopher problem less depressing.

rabbits cleaned up what lawn I didn`t try to kill on purpose. what is an egret?

egret

I googled

http://www.nature-wildlife.com/egret0.html

bob
:>)

Hmmm---maybe I can flood the gopher tunnels and get my local blue heron to eat them and leave my FISH ALONE! Talk about a win-win.......~~

flooding doesn`t work, trust me our area was completely under water for about two weeks 2 years ago and last year we had a huge rodent problem, rabbits, mice and gophers. I thought i saw these little scuba guys swimming around the yard with masks and tanks, it was amazing. It apparently killed a lot of gopher snakes though. I wonder if it would be worth it to put boric acid down the tunnels, it is very bad for your soil though so it probably would only be worth it in areas near gravel or walkways, not near plants. It works for bugs, turns their system into a solid concrete like thing when they drink. Furthermore , my DH works at a Borax plant(mine) and there is not a living bug or animal on the property. ya know it is safe for humans they say though. Right? In their ponds, there are alot of dead ones. This Mine is about 10 miles from that town, that was in Erin Brockavitch, called Hinkley. it is a ghost town practicaaly but there are some dumb people that live there. there is a bar too.

No matter how nasty the place, it seems there's ALWAYS a bar! We have an abandoned mercury mine not far from our area----according to the pictures, it's another lovely spot. Wonder if they have gophers? Probably mutant glow-in-the-dark ones.

ROTFLMAO

pigeo

with all thegarlic in gilroy, you don't have to worry 'bout gophers too much.... do you???


bob :>)



I

I have really good news....for me,anyway. We've always had ferrets here and I never thought anything about it until my neighbor saw one today and asked about them because she's worried about her chickens. I'd never thought about what they eat, knew they'd eat chickens and eggs,but...ta-daaa, they eat gophers!!! and rats!!! How cool is this? I hope we have lots of ferrets!

I need ferrits, i never thought of them running wild in Ca. though. A guy on DG in Bakersfield has wild parrots all over. Parrots?

what about gopher snakes?

I never see any gopher snakes here unfotunately...We do have King snakes,which I love because they're enemy to the rattler. I've seen baby King snakes recently, but never see gopher snakes.
Sherry

I want some, anyone got any?Their my new best friend, oh ya and the ferrits..with my luck they would all eat the poison that the gophers don`t. I like the birthcontrol pills idea, we will wrap it in peanutbutter.

What about "Freecycle"? I wonder if anyone is willing to give gopher snakes away (I wouldn't mention that you will be putting their pets down a gopher hole in the back yard! LOL)

Okay, I checked images andI have seen a couple of San Diego gopher snakes here. (makes sense...San Diego)
Well, I've never put out gopher bait,but gotta say that I was thinking of doing it this week. I hadn't even given a thought to the possibility of ferrets getting it. Simply hadn't thought of them. I'm glad my neighbor called and asked about the ferrets. I really like them and wouldn't want them harmed. And when I read about the gophers..wow.
Dawn, JasperDale has wild parrots close to his house in Long Beach. They're waaaaay cool.

KG,
They'd have to bring them here and turn them loose by themselves...I do not handle snakes. I'd just think of it as "setting them free"

when you meet them, bring a 5 gallon bucket and have them put the snake/snakes in it. when you get home lay the bucket over......and RUN! :~D