It's so durned aggravating when your garden has to be encased/covered/fenced to protect from these critters!

I don't have the critters that ground-gardeners do, but these blasted birds are driving me nuts this year! They are eating everything - even thru the plastic hardware cloth that's covering so much stuff!

I feel your pain ...

PV

Thanks for the sympathy PV...wow, that sounds like some hungry birds!

Yesterday morning I discovered there are not one but three baby Groundhog Jr.'s living in our yard...

But the good news is, I think they can only get through the garden gate, which has wider bars than the rest of the fence. I'm going to see if I can somehow add some extra bars to the gate, and transplant the remains of the morning glories to a trellis against the house.

Decided against the chicken wire when I remembered groundhogs like to use chicken wire to climb over fences. It gives them a convenient toehold.

Well, at least we know the birds & wildlife in our areas are healthy and thriving, lol.

Topie..I hate to tell you this but groundhogs can easily climb right up and over fences and also dig tunnels underneath them. I tell you this from long and bitter experience with them!! As you can see from my user name I only ever found one really good solution to the problem and that was to trap them and relocate them. I also stopped planting all vegetables which also helped. Good luck with whatever you do!
Joann

When we moved in here many years ago we had a lot of groundhogs. Joann is right, the only thing to do is trap them and relocate them. We did that to a couple of them. The dog got another that was trying to burrow under the patio. She ran it off twice and it kept coming back. The third time was a battle to the death that she won. It was awful to watch. I was looking for a shovel or something to break it up, but before I could find anything she had killed it, and she's not that big, only 50 or so pounds. One of my neighbors asked if he could borrow her. Sick, but groundhogs can be a real nuisance. We now have three dogs, and critters aren't much of a problem. There's one persistent (stupid) rabbit, but the dogs go nuts when they see it and run it off, so it doesn't have much of a chance to do damage.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! Lol, huge groundhog populations seem to be a SE PA thing... that's where we are too. That's a harrowing story about the groundhog and your dog, wow! I'm glad your dog was OK after that...yikes! Unfortunately my DH is fond of the groundhogs, so trapping and relocating doesn't seem to be an option...

The other day I attached a piece of sheet metal to the gate and since then it doesn't look as if anything has been munching anymore on the fenced area of the garden, so hopefully the wide bars on the gate were the only way they were getting in. My fenced garden is surrounded by a concrete patio so they can't tunnel under the fence. Plus the fence is a 3 1/2 foot high old iron fence with bars that are close together and no gap underneath...so far I haven't seen them attempting to climb over it. But you never know.

I've never grown vegetables either because of the groundhogs...it's a wonder anyone with farms can grow anything around here. I guess if worse comes to worse I will just have to go with the same plants in my non-fenced area like sedum, salvia, monarda, etc. which the groundhogs don't seem to eat.

Thankfully my salvia is in bloom, and all the monarda/bee balm is about to bloom... so at least there is something pretty they don't devour!!

I'm also in SW PA, in the city, and have been bothered off and on with groundhogs ever since they dug out a wooded area nearby and built condos!! It seems that some years we have them and some we don't. This spring they ate my goldenrod. I trimed it back so it would at least look neat and now it's very full, but, alas, has no flowers. It still has time though, I'm optimistic. My neighbor had good luck scaring them away with a water sprinkler that went off automatically when they came around. Good luck.

I too have been battling these consarned things. The best thing I found so far, is putting used cat litter clumps in the entrance to their burrows. But that only works if you can find the burrow.

The smelly litter makes them move out. So they moved from my shed out back to under my front porch. I put the litter under the porch and they haven't gone near it, but I know they are around because they are devouring my sweet potato vine.

We've spent the 33 years we've been in our 1830s farmhouse living with groundhogs. As we 'civilized' the near deteriorated house they moved away and have an established colony under the big barn where we park our tractor.

However a second site is on the steepish hill in our yard.

When we put a flight of wooden steps down the hill 5 years ago they located their back door behind one of the steps and gravelly rocks appear on the step. Mostly we just clean the steps when company is coming and live with them the rest of the time.

I'm writing this to give a real positive to their residence. This year a very ancient apple tree (untended) had a bumper crop. The groundhogs have been busy, biting, eating and discarding sour apples and strewing them on the
steps. We have observed an amazing number of butterflies there enjoying the apples--a dozen or two at a time--dark swallowtails with blue on rear wings, viceroys, maybe monarchs, and another kind that's orangy brown with an irregular wing shape. All in all it is a great year for butterflies all over our property.

Chris

Thanks for the good luck wishes! That's good to know about the cat litter. I think the groundhog babies in our yard have moved out to their own "apartments" now, because I've only seen the male lately. Then again, maybe something ate them.

So far the sheet metal on the fence gate seems to have worked and kept them out of our fenced area. The phlox have recovered their leaves, but alas, no blooms this year. Once I sealed the gate with sheet metal, the morning glories also recovered and are blooming away. In the non-fenced area, they seem to avoid anything minty, fleshy, hairy, or lily-ish, lol.

Here's what they haven't eaten so far this year:

Monarda/Beebalm
'Autumn Joy' and 'Vera Jameson' sedum (they seem to like to gnaw the flesh off the stems of 'Xenox' sedum though...)
Lamb's Ear
Trumpet Lily
Daylily
Salvia & Russian sage
Heuchera
Sweet Joepyeweed (I figured they would like to eat this, but I guess not, thank goodness)
Obedient plant
Snapdragons

I'm planning to sow heuchera, salvia, Obedient plant, and snapdragons this coming year. May also try sowing some primrose and see if they eat that or not.

The groundhogs have never eaten my hostas, garden phlox, hydrangea or ladies mantle. Which isn't to say they won't in the future, but for now those are safe. Chris is right. They are also God's creatures and we need to live with them. I can no longer grow vegetable but we have a great farmer's market that makes up for that. And aren't they the cutest things, especally the babies. Butterflies?? There's a plus!

I have persuaded people at my community garden not to trap and relocate groundhogs for a couple of reasons:
-our garden is in the middle of the woods, removing one groundhog has resulted in 2 taking its place, to fill the vaccuum.
- some people trap and relocate thinking they are being humane, in fact, groundhogs are territorial and will try to return and get hit by cars.
Also the traps catch other animals and we've had animals die of fright in those cages, animals that we did not mean to hurt.

I had my tomatoes attacked by them (in spite of a fence, which they DO see as an opportunity for some good exercise!), but since then what has worked (so far) is those silver pie plates hooked up so that they blow in the wind, either the noise or the sight seems to keep them away.

I'm glad to hear that the water thing worked -we've been thinking of trying that. Also, what one person did is make a fence that went 8 inches below the surface. At the top they have an edging which is metal things poking out at an angle to keep the critters from climbing over.

This has worked for them for several years.

good luck,
ellen

oh forgot this- I found leaves eaten that were about 4 feet in the air. And we don't have deer.
My theory is that they little critters stand on each others' shoulders!

"hey Charlie give me a lift up would ya?"