I'll bet different soils warrant different solutions. Here, we have cobble soils, i.e. sandy loam top soil underlain with a layer of cobble underlain with solid clay. I don't plant in pots or commercial gopher cages. My use of cages has evolved over time.

At this point, I'm using bottomless cages made of fine hardware cloth. We excavate a big hole, 2 feet across and deep. The hardware cloth is not buried but rather extends above ground about 3 inches with a rough edge. It is formed into a cylinder without a bottom because the pocket gophers in my garden tunnel at the 1' to 1' 4" depth. The rough top wire is to discourage voles, which are just as destructive as gophers, if not more so. Voles like to camp out on the outside of the gopher cages, presumably because the cage supplies protection and food supply on one side.

Wire never worked well for us, which is why we went to plastic pots.

We've used 15 and 20 gallon pots, and I think the 20-G are better for the roses, but a real stinker for whoever has to dig the hole.

IF we didn't have such an overwhelming gopher problem, I'd NEVER plant in anything, but everytime we've tried it, the gophers won, in the end.

Jeri

I haven't put my pots in the ground yet, but I put WAY more than two dozen holes, in fact there's probably that many just on the bottom of the 5gal pots I'm using for some small roses.

Btw, if you're drilling holes, getting a 'unibit' will make your job a breeze. According to DH, get one larger than you want to make the hole, because if you drill it through, you can't back it out easily. I used a black sharpie to mark the size up so I can see where to stop. If you get one, make sure the shank will fit your drill chuck.

Here is a link that might be useful: Unibit

Thanks for the responses. I debated back and forth for a while then today bought some of the tree-sized wire cages for the larger climbers. I could not imagine an 18 foot rose with its roots crammed into even a 20 gallon pot.

I will be getting several more nursery squats for some more blueberry plants. It's the only way I can both keep the gophers out, and the pH at the level I want.

Rosefolly

We've had a lot less trouble since we put in the machine gun nest.

Your zoning laws must be different, Ingrid. Machine guns must be on leash here at all times. :)

Here, a 6' block wall with a 2' concrete foundation below ground has been 100% effective.

A wee bit pricey, though.

I actually have thought that when we put the eight foot fence in the back garden to keep out the deer, we should have gone ahead and put a two foot deep concrete footer underground for the gophers. The thing is, we didn't have gophers at the time. They showed up a couple of years later.

Rosefolly

I make cages of chicken wire I purchase at the local home improvement store. On the hill here in Encino, I frequently dig up old chicken wire cages put in the ground twenty to thirty years ago where the plants installed didn't make it for one reason or another. I simply cut a length 31 openings long then roll it into a tube and use the cut wire ends to connect it together. I fold the bottom like you do a burrito, then put the root ball in and fold the tops over. 100% effective in preventing the varmints from destroying the root balls and even keeps the moles from unearthing them too close to the crown of the plants. I thought longevity may have been an issue until I began finding old ones with dead plants in them out farther down the hill and discovered they were the Cal. Natives which were installed in the 70s and 80s. The plants died but the chicken wire cages are still solid.

That is good to hear. It was my impression that the galvanized wire cages only lasted four or five years in the ground. If they will last 30 years or so I am content.

Rosefolly

Meeow. Problem solved.

I used the commercial wire baskets in my Ojai garden and they worked! Not one of the few roses I planted without them survived. That said, the berndoodle cylinder sounds like an improvement.

Colleen