Ground squirrels. And skunks (I think). I read here on GW that they'll dig down into the soil looking for grubs -- we have holes in the ground that go nowhere, so I suspect skunks are responsible. I KNOW they're responsible for spraying my dog. Twice. So he's not fond of them either.

snails

my crappy soil

vinca

Eucalyptus globulus. You have weeds? How about hundred-foot-tall weeds? Cut them down, and the stumps sprout for years. Blink, and a sprout is twenty feet tall. Blink again, and it's gone to seed and there are ten more sprouts.

It's driving me crazy. At least they smell nice.

Love the eucalyptus, hate when it has those babies.
Abhor the gophers
Love the hose, after finally hooking up to community water. It's wonderful to be able to water - and flush everytime....

squirrels
cats
squirrels
ants
squirrels
caterpillars
squirrels

did I mention squirrels?

ANTS!!! I hate ants crawling all over me when I am working in the garden HATE the ants that get on the hose then down my hands oh the ANTS!!!!

Rabbits! Everyone thinks they're cute. I did too for the 1st two months I lived here. Most annuals are rabbit food. Perennials are rabbit food. Roses are rabbit food. Vegetables are rabbit food. Lawns are the worst! They eat weeds on the nearby hill, then wander down to my lawn to dump their weed-seed-filled pellets. My garden is a rabbit-proof-planting laboratory. I want a coyote to move in (not really, my dog fights them off).

Also on my list:
--Bermuda grass, spurge, crabgrass, clover, misc weeds;
--gophers, moles, squirrels (rats with good PR), rats (squirrels with bad PR);
--my dog, when he's not chasing rabbits;
--my chickens, when they're in the vegetable garden or messing up my patio;
--neighbors' dogs;
--whatever disease is making my tomatoes wilt;
--ants, black widows, pillbugs, snails, slugs, cutworms, miscellaneous disgusting bugs;
--heat, frost, Santa Anas, June gloom;
--palm tree seedlings and people who plant palm trees;
--my local water company, which doesn't understand that people with half acre hills need more water than people without, even when the people with hills try to plant natives;
--the local firefighters, who want all weeds cleared by June 1 and don't understand that natives are not weeds (just kidding about that last one -- we need the firefighters)

But then I get one perfect rose and it's worth it all. I think.

I guess I have all the earwigs since no one has mentioned them. The eat holes in everything and can devour a tender young plant overnight.

Here's the best solution for earwigs -- and it's non-toxic: equal parts soy sauce, molasses and veggie oil. I usually put 2 TBSP each in an empty tuna can (the large size) or smaller amounts in empty cat food cans. The soy/molasses attracts the earwigs and the oil layer floats on top, preventing the earwigs from getting out. I buy gallon-size jugs at Smart 'n Final -- much less expensive than the smaller containers.

You'll get a LOT of earwigs in these traps, and except for the odd snail or ladybug, that's all they entrap -- just earwigs. These have saved my zinnia seedlings more than once!

Thanks for the tip Slogal. I'll give it a try.

Your rant about the garden hose is so true. My yard is largish and I have to join a 100 foot hose to a 50 foot hose to get the curbside plants watered. Kinking, tangling and getting stuck on the blasted surface roots of my Kingan Fruitless Mulberry: I look forward to when I take it out and replace it with a London Plane Tree.

I will have to put up with the hose until I can rig some sort of watering system.

Spider mites!

Of course I am sure they are mostly a problem because its a new garden and the soil is pretty crappy.
Or am I delusional to hope the problem will get better as I improve the place I am planting in?

Oh...so many...which to choose?

Hmmm. I think I'll go with the hard clay soil.

"Is there really such a thing as a Giant Himalayan Blackberry?"

Boy, is there ever! Imagine inch-thick coils of botanical barbed wire that can increase their length by up to 14 inches in one day. They have three propagation mechanisms: they can grow from seeds that are widely dispersed by birds, they can tip root when their arching canes touch the soil (forming trip lines that are sure to snare you when the wheelbarrow is full of compost) and they can regrow from severed roots (so that the back-breaking labor of pulling them out is little more than an exercise in producing more of them). They are resistant to all but the most toxic herbicides. They will stall brush mowers by wrapping their tentacles around the blades and quickly clog chainsaws with tough strands of fiber. And if you ever managed to conquer them for a season, don't congratulate yourself too quickly. You will have a never-ending battle with bird-sown seedlings.

Dicksonia, I am afraid of anything that has three methods of reproduction. Are you sure this plant is from the Himalalyas and not really an alien from another planet?

"ANTS!!! I hate ants crawling all over me when I am working in the garden HATE the ants that get on the hose then down my hands oh the ANTS!!!!"

I have been laughing about Socalgirl's post for a year now. Every time ants crawl up the hose on to my arms I squeal:
"ANTS!!! oh the ANTS!!!!" and my husband cracks up.

Renee

The soil or rather, the rocks, chalk and clay that makes up the top layers on our hill.
Second, the gophers that not only destroy plants but also erode that hill.
And just discovered, tree/roof rats! that ate every plum and every apricot from our trees - yikes!

1. Lack of rain
2. Almost pure clay soil except where I amended it
3. Bermuda grass that I am trying to eradicate from my garden and from around my fruit trees
4. Hillside that makes watering difficult without runoff and makes rototilling dangerous and strenuous
5. Roly Polys that eat young seedlings and tomatoes touching the ground
6. Green fruit beetles that eat my nectarines
7. Shade from plants my neighbor plants right on the property line that block sunlight to what I am trying to grow
8. Aphids and the ants that farm them
9. A newcomer this year, tiny black beetles that decimated my Swiss Chard. Luckily the chard acted as a magnet and kept them away from other vegetables

10. Scale insects on my citrus
11. White flies on my tomatoes
12. Spittle bugs on my rosemary
13. Big brown and little green grasshoppers on everything
    6. Aphids

For me it's the skunks. They think my garden shed is their personal Porta Potty and boy does it stink. I keep blocking entrances and they keep finding ways to get in. Last year I hired a trapper to take them away but all he caught was 2 opossums, a raccoon , and the neighborhood pussy cat.

Squirrels
gophers
ants,hate them crawling all over me as well.
Lack of rain,and now we have to ration water,can only water sunday,tuesday and thursday for 10 minutes for the sprinklers.

Mealybugs on amaryllis and cacti.
Kathi

My water bill.

Yikes! I just noticed that I said the same thing on 7/17 as I did back on 7/9. Sorry 'bout that!

Well...at least I'm consistent. :)

Bermuda grass . . . but ask me in the wintertime and I'll probably say annual bluegrass instead.

Honorable mentions go to ants, foxtails, spurge, and the neighbors who on multiple occasions have left their hose running for a week until our yard (which is lower than theirs) was a foot underwater. The best part is when I come home from a camping trip and notice it and go over to beg them to turn it off - only to find out they're on vacation themselves until who knows when.

Nutsedge.

Also known as nut grass.

I'm not generally a woman inclined to faith or superstition, but this weed confirms the existence of the devil. The delicate thread tendrils that connect the plant to the "nut" always break when you dig the plant out. Unless you get the nut, too, you're just making it angry. Those nuts can be 2" down or 18" down. I have dug hundreds out of my vegetable garden this year. Over the winter, I'm going to go all medieval on them and use something nuclear.

Oh, and I hate ficus plants. Vines or trees -- take your pick.

GOPHERS!!!!

I don't know how many time I have told someone, "If I could wave a magic wand and make gophers extinct I wouldn't even hesitate."

Ant farming aphids suck.

Since the crazy cat lady in the neighborhood died, the strays have decided that the garden is a toilet. Unfortunately, they don't have a taste for gophers or I might not mind so much.

Oh, asparagus fern can be a PITA.

I am experiencing a huge pillbug/sow bug/"rolypoly" population explosion. There are millions of tiny ones in addition to the many adults. They have eaten the bottom of the stalk & killed 3 green bean plants so far & are now gathering at the base of the tomato plants. I want to keep my garden organic. Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks

Perhaps the Sluggo Plus that helped with my earwig population explosion would help with your pillbugs. Nothing eats them, not even chickens, because they taste awful. Trust me. Really awful.

Sluggo Plus is iron phosphate and Spinosad, a soil-dwelling bacterium. One of the other GardenWeb members recommended it earlier in the year, and it has been a lifesaver (or at least a lettuce and pepper saver). One 27.00 jug has treated my half-acre twice.

Renee

Thank you for your answer, hosenemesis!
Is Sluggo Plus considered organic?

From what I understand, because they are crustaceans instead of insects, normal methods don't work on them.
Thanks for the tip.

Hi shipwreck,
The label here says it controls earwigs, cutworms, sowbugs, pillbugs, slugs and snails. Both iron phosphate and the bacterium in Spinosad are naturally occurring in soil. The warning label says not to get it in your eyes or to get it in water because it kills aquatic invertebrates (snails?).

Most people consider it organic, I believe. Spinosad is like BT (Bacillus Thur something or another): a biological agent that infects only specific insects.

Renee

Thank you hosenemesis! I just ordered some.

Asparagus fern is pretty invasive around here, spreads everywhere and it's very difficult to tear out all the fibrous root network. If you don't get every last piece of root, it will regrow. The birds spread the little red berries and once they get land in the crevice of a bush, it starts to take over until eventually the bush is more asparagus fern than whatever the bush was before. Most homeowners do not seem to care, they just keep pruning around the bush to keep it in shape.

Can never seem to get rid of the whitefly on the hibiscus, or the leaf miner on the lemon tree. Kyllinga sedge is taking over the lawn, gradually replacing the grass.

The worst invasives seem to be the very small ones that are not easy to just rip out.

Thrips!

I'd have to say it's the plants that don't grow as they should or as I hoped they would and the edibles that produce nothing edible.

Several have mentioned mine - the hard clay soil I have that will not drain. So many plants drown because water will not drain, and so I have to grow most things (in the back yard at least) in pots. Since the previous owners put concrete over a large area of the back yard, it is a nice area for putting wine or whiskey barrel planters, and I use those for citrus trees, one hibiscus, and a cherimoya. I would like to grow an avocado tree, but I don't think those planters are big enough. I guess perhaps my soil is bad because I am also at the top of an extremely slight hill. The good thing about that is that all water drains away from my house.

Something is eating my apples, but I have no idea what it is.

Hard clay soil is nothing a good shovel and some strong-handed work can't fix. Sometimes you have to go down 2 feet and replace the soil with something better.

Hot sun - plants that require full sun will not thrive in my full sun ... they will roast. Almost everything cooks and looks like crap during the summer. I have yet to figure out a cohesive landscape with alternating hard sun and full shade depending on time of year. To make matters worse, I gave in to my husband when he kept complaining and I allowed him to remove several 40 year old foundation plants that did just fine. Still PO.

In the hot parts of California, many plants tend to grow better in the close proximity and partially shaded by other plants. This is a fundamental piece of knowledge in the field of permaculture.

Anyone who thinks hard clay soil is nothing a good shovel and some strong-handed work can't fix is welcome to come to my back yard, and I will pay them to do it. I am not physically able to do it myself, and when I did have someone dig two feet deep to make a huge hole for an avocado tree, the hole still took two days to drain.

I've got to repeat CA Kate from back in '08, GOPHERS!! I have a lot of issues including the common ones of Bermuda grass, heavy clay, lack of water, etc. But I cannot get rid of the DAM*N Gophers!!

I and my husband have trapped, and trapped and trapped. And we really just keep them at bay. Some may say, "why bother trapping if you still have them?", to them I say, If we didn't trap we would have 5 to 10x's more than we have now. We didn't trap for a year because of life stuff preoccupying us, and we got sooooo many more. Trapping in spring is essential to get the breeders and/or the young. Leave off a year an they come back like Arnold those movies. They'll be back!!

Pretty much everything I plant is in a pot or a wire mesh cage. I have areas of my yard where I have to be careful when I walk or I could break an ankle as my foot sinks into the soil 6-8" from their runs. Large unplanted areas look like a dozen tiny guys went over it with a bunch of rototillers.

I've tried them all, gassing, water flooding(the whole of CA does not have enough water) Gopher Spurge. (pretty plant, the only thing it has going for it is gophers don't eat it, but neither are they deterred), gopher poison pellets; somehow they just don't eat them, etc.

The only thing that works, and only to keep the population at reasonable levels, is trapping by the Macabee type traps.

Sigh. And compared to these guys, the Drought is easily manageable.

I hope you're not killing them...

Please, they do make humane traps, where you can dump the critter somewhere else.

parker25mv, As Nil13 wrote on another recent thread (Coyote Piss, I believe), the CA codes for the trap and release of nuisance animals don't allow you to "dump the critters somewhere else". You must release the live animal within the immediate vicinity, generally defined as the home range of that animal. So, for example, you can legally live trap a squirrel roaming in your attic, but you must release it in your yard, not drive miles away to a wilderness area to drop it off.

My Great Grannie would've made a soup out of 'em. :)

Chilli Thrips

I fought Bermuda out of 3 gardens. Hate Bermuda except for playgrounds and dog parks. The Bermuda at the rose bowl in Pasadena is velvety and soft. That's the nicest Bermuda lawn I ever sat on. I suppose if I had some terraced seating surrounded by cement I might consider Bermuda but cutting it short like that exposes the soil to sun and I'm seeing lots of close cut lawns suffering in drought and having hard baked dry brown spots.

Gophers, squirrels, mosquitoes, fleas and stray cats!

Another vote for GOPHERS! Constant vigilance. Have to watch like a hawk for the first mound and trap immediately. They ate all the roots of my poor tomatoes in one day when we were away.

Squirrels during fruit season. Citrus leaf miners. Our monthly mow, blow and go guys who sometimes take it upon themselves to prune.

Redwood trees that drink way too much water and don't let anything grow within 20 feet of them (but look too majestic to be cut down)

Hard clay soil mixed with construction debris from generations of remodeling projects.

Neighbors who let their pittosporum hedge get so tall that my yard is all in shade. And then cut it down to 3 feet with no notice on the hottest day of the year so half my yard fries by evening.

That is a rough one, drinkmorewater. It is heartbreaking and expensive. I'm had neighbors cut trees at two homes, and fry my shade plants. To say nothing about the limbs they cut so they fell in my yard, smashing my flowering star magnolia.

Well.... A few months ago I would have said turkeys, raccoons and squirrels. BUT I had a family of raccoons removed from under the house and the wild turkeys around here are suddenly absent (I think the drought brought a mountain lion down lower and at them). Guess what happened? GRUBS! Grubs, grubs, grubs galore.

So I guess it just goes to show... whatever pests are in the yard... they're only there because they're probably eating another pest! Be careful when you get rid of one.... another one might suddenly overrun you!

Although if the predator nematodes I got work on the grubs I guess they're not really my nemesis...just annoying little buggers.

I had possums when I lived in Venice - they liked my passion fruit and papayas, among other fruit, and I trapped them in a cardboard box with cat food as bait and drove them 2 or 3 blocks to the Marina Del Rey wildlife refuge, next to the MDR bike path where too many people walked their dogs. I did not mind when they walked dogs on the grass or sidewalk, but I did object when they walked them on the bike path where I was trying to ride my bike. The possums merrily crunched on cat food in the cardboard box while they were being transported.

Redwood trees and redwood tree roots! HATE HATE HATE....

My neighbor's Redwood tree has sent a major root into my yard that is more like a reee! It's over two feet in diameter and rises above ground at least a foot.. Besides that, It is impossible to penetrate the soil anywhere around this tree. It's ruining my garden.

On the other side of my property are three younger Redwood trees lifting pavers, breaking apart my raised vegetable bed of concrete blocks, up against the foundation of my house, growing under my deck....

I vote for gophers.

Kill all the gophers!