For many people, their garden is their pride and joy. It is a place that they can sit in the spring and enjoy their own private area, and it is a place that can be enjoyed with friends and family too. Children play in the garden, and adults cook BBQs and enjoy a cold drink in the summer.
However, gardens are also enjoyed by a host of other creatures. Many of these are key to having a healthy ecosystem and are necessary for making flowers bloom and plants flourish, but some are just pests. Unwanted visitors to your garden can cause damage.
Insects, gophers, rats, mice, and other nuisances can destroy plants, lawns, and cause extensive damage. Incredibly, it is said that insects can cause tens of billions of dollars to homes each year. If an insect can do that, imagine what a gopher might do.
Do you know what gophers are?
Sometimes these creatures are called pocket gophers due to their cheek pockets which they use to carry food to their nests. They also use these pockets to carry materials for building nests, which is exactly what you want to avoid.
While gophers may look cute they are classed as rodents and they are undoubtedly a pest. Bigger than mice but smaller than rats, they are commonly found in North and Central America and like to set up home in loose and sandy areas which means back yards are often ideal.
They have between one and three litters each year, and each time they will have between 5 and 6 pups. If not contained quickly, gophers can spread out quickly because although they generally live alone, their borrows can cover up to 2,000 sqft.
What are the hazards of leaving gophers in your backyard?
It is unlikely you would want to keep a gopher in your backyard as he or she systematically destroys it but if you did you would be facing a lot of damage.
When you are looking for inspiration to create the perfect small garden, seeing a gopher pop up out of the ground is probably not going to do it. Due to gopher’s relentless burrowing and tunneling, they can cause a lot of damage underground to roots of plants, trees, pipes, and house foundations. They can cause water damage by drawing water through their tunnels, and they can cause disease.
Gophers aren’t just responsible for damaging your backyard and home, they can be a risk to your health too. They can carry rabies, leptospirosis, and hantavirus which can cause fatigue, aches, dizziness, headaches, agitation, and paralysis.
Should you kill gophers?
The only way to rid yourself of gophers is to either physically remove them or kill them. However, killing should be done as your last option not your first. There are a number of other methods you can use before you start gassing or poisoning these pests.
You may find prevention is the best course of action. If you don’t yet have gophers then make your garden secure from them. Several plants repel gophers so you could grow a border with lavender, catmint, marigolds, and rosemary.
Alternatively, you could build mesh barriers around and under your lawn. This will work best if you are going to lay a new lawn and you can place gopher mesh on the ground first. However, this could be a lot of work.
How to get rid of gophers
There are many tricks to help you get rid of gophers including live traps, repellants, gopher mesh, gopher baskets, fabric softener sheets, and apparently, Juicy Fruit gum. Gopher baskets can help prevent root damage, and fabric softener sheets are useful at repelling these pesky rodents.
It has been said that Juicy Fruit gum is attractive to gophers and they will gobble up any they find, however, this may not be the most humane way to rid yourself of your nuisances.
However, if you want to get rid of gophers for good you may need to call in some professional help. Professionals will offer a choice of options which will include no-kill trapping and more conventional measures.
Trapping involves your chosen expert coming and locating the tunnels. They will then open up part of them and place the traps inside. Once a few days the professional will return and check the traps, resetting them if necessary.
Alternatively, they can also use carbon monoxide to get rid of the gophers. This is a good solution for effectively removing the gophers and is done safely with no risk to human life.
Summary
Just like many other rodents, gophers can look quite cute. However, what they do to people’s lawns and back yards is anything but cute. Serious damage can be done by exposing tree roots, creating irrigation, and eating plant roots. Not only this but they can damage your home’s foundations and worst of all potentially affect your health.
There are many ways to keep your garden healthy and in this instance the best way to remove them may be to call in experienced professionals who know how to rid a garden of gophers quickly and effectively.