Monarch murderer. Sounds like a declaration of war to me. Totally justified in this instance.

Ive got a mole or gopher that is having its way with the yard and flower beds. its getting to the point where I may sit out with the 12 gauge waiting for movement ;)

mike

I have used the castor beans dropped down into holes in the ground and it is hard to say if it works. I did it this summer when the pine voles started traveling underground through pre-existing gopher tunnels (the cats got all the gophers, but the voles are mostly active at night when the cats are safely inside for the night) in the new garden area, eating the roots of a fig tree and the roots of tons of perennial flowers and annual veggies and herbs. The voles seem partial to the roots of lantana and fennel. Now, I have a lot less lantana and no fennel at all, but have quite a few castor bean plants that sprouted and grew from the castor bean seeds that the voles did not eat.

So, did it help? It is hard to say. Damage seemed more sporadic after I started dropping castor bean seeds in the holes left each time I removed a plant that died because all of its roots were eaten. Based on how many of the beans sprouted and grew, I don't think the voles actually ate the beans. The damage to the garden plants never stopped completely though. When you have acres and acres of woodland, you never will get rid of all the voles because that is their habitat. I'm not convinced the castor bean seeds work, but they work at least as well at repelling the critters as the castor oil sprays do.

I don't have much gopher experience. The cats control them, and the cats try to control the voles when the voles are foolish enough to appear in public in daylight, but I think we'll always have voles.

From now on, when I plant fruit trees or perennials or some of the vole favorites like fennel in the back garden plot, I'll plant them in gopher baskets made from hardware cloth to protect the roots.

Most of the people I know near me who have sandy soil and who have lots of gophers have pretty much switched to growing in containers. The number of gopher mounds that pop up out of the ground is those areas just blows my mind.

I have started making and using the hardware cloth planters this year. Have them throughout the flower garden protecting my perennial milkweed plants. It's amazing to see where the gopher has zipped right up beside these cages! i think they make him mad. I'd like to see him try to take a hunk out of the hardware cloth. I haven't checked since early this morning to see if there is any activity. It was pretty quiet then. Will check again this evening.

I probably need a cat, but I'm highly allergic. And I live in a neighborhood where an outdoor cat wouldn't be welcome, or might end up as coyote food. One of the neighbor's little dogs was killed by a coyote this week. Went over the fence and into the yard.

Sandy