((((Sierra))))) ~ That is absolutely horrible! Especially since you've never had this problem in 12 years of gardening there. I do hope you can salvage some of your beauties and also figure out who the culprit/s are.

FlowerLady

Sierra, I'm so sorry this is happening to your lovely gardens. Where exactly are you located? Are you in our beautiful Sierras in CA.? sigh - my favorite place to hike and just hang out. : ) If so, I wonder if the CA. ground squirrel is the problem. They have managed to tunnel under my front fence and into my grass, the bleepin' rats with skinny tails!!! Their tunnels can be very long, even hundreds of feet. I stuck the "leavings" from the litter box down some of the holes and haven't seen any more new holes. Guess they don't like those puddy cat pellets. ; )

Diana

Thank you flowerlady, I have to say, I shed a few tears.

Diana, I live Canada. I don't think we have ground squirrels here. I haven't seen what is causing the damage yet...but I will certainly be watching now.

Sierra

Sierra,
I'm very sorry to hear of this damage, especially since you've waited so long for spring!
Seems like we gardeners are always doing battle with critters or weather or disease.

Let us know when you find out what the culprit is.
PattiOh

Sierra: So sorry to hear about this. It's heartbreaking, isn't it? I've had some damage over the past few years. The only thing I could attribute it to was voles/moles or squirrels. I've seen both in my garden. They do enjoy the taste of bulbs. And the voles will eat tubers in my garden, too.

Tracy

Sierra,

I had this in my vegetable garden last summer. At first I thought it was feild mice as we have a lot of problems with them in winter coming into the house and buildings. Yesterday we moved a building and came upon a vole. It had the pathways you describe running under a lot of old boards and things. The vole was larger than a mouse by about 3 times. It also didn't scurry off like a mouse would but sort of hung around...until our dog nabbed it! That allowed me to get a better look at it. And also it had a short tail, unlike a mouse which has a longer tail. They ate every ripe tomato I got last year which wasn't many due to the extreme heat we had. Fortunately I can move my vegies to a different area this year but I am concerned that they may take up residence in my flower bed now which I just covered in mulch. Time will tell. The vegie bed was heavily ammended in composted cow manure which had a lot of grubs in it. That may have been what drew them in the first place. I also had it heavily mulched in straw to keep the weeds out.

Here is a link to all things Vole.

I hope you can get a handle on this problem. Your gardens are beautiful!

MeMo

Here is a link that might be useful: Voles.com

At first glance here, I saw trails and tulips disappearing and thought oh, she has a moose!
Hope lost is one of the most devastating things we deal with regardless of the source or type of loss. Twelve years' investment in a garden is a lot of spring time hopes. I am sorry.

I am so sorry to hear this. I know its got to break your heart to see this damage.

Hopefully you will be able to identify the critter and get him to move on!

Marilyn

MeMo, I think thats it...it describes pretty much what I am seeing. Its really strange that I have never seen anything like this before. They created major runways, there must be a lot of them. I wish the snow would just hurry up and leave, so I can see just how much damage there is. I was shocked, and very upset...now I am thinking more of damage control and plant replacements.

My garden will be fine, regardless of how much damage there is.....if I have to, I can fill in with annuals this year...and start a lot of perennials from seed. I have also given a lot of divisions away over the years....so I am sure that I can get some pieces back of many things.(Hopefully I won't have to.) The bulbs, such as the lilies.....if none come up..(I am hoping they left some)..can be replaced with the 100 or so, that I have and planned to plant this spring anyway. And hopefully the pieces of lilies that I brought in will form new bulbs and I will be able to plant some of them out next year....of course I have no idea, what lilies I have the shreds from....so if this works that will be a surprise. WalMart for the last couple of years have carried some hardy roses in pots, fairly cheap...so I can probably get some replacements there. I know that I will have to replace at least one rose.

Thanks all,

Sierra

Sierra,

I have moles in my yard, inherited when I bought my house. There are tunnels everywhere and places in my front lawn that have become sink holes because of the tunnels.

The only effective (& pet friendly) remedy I have found is my miniature Schnauzer, Raleigh. He has made it his life's mission to catch them and has been quite successful. In the summer, he can catch one a week, sometimes more. He's gradually killing them off. He also kills chipmonks which are cute but tunnel too. My yard is like swiss cheese below the surface.

I know this isn't much help since there's no way of knowing if a dog or cat is going to be a good hunter. My other miniature Schnauzer, Daisy, can't be bothered to hunt anything. She waits until Raleigh's caught something and then takes it away from him.

bloominganne

Hi Sierra,

I had a similar problem a couple of years ago. It was a combination of a couple of things. For years we'd never had any mole/vole/critter damage in the garden. We'd had a wonderful kitty, who loved to hunt. So, we didn't have too many. Then a company started to build, less then a mile from our house. The first year wasn't so bad, but every year since the construction started, there has been an increase in the number of critters chowing down in the garden.
I still have a kitty, but he doesn't hunt like my other one.

I haven't found anything that really helps.

I hope your beautiful garden doesn't take too long to return to it's old self, but it sounds like you were planning on making some changes anyway (trying to keep positive).

Wish you much luck.

-S

Oh my gosh, these things are destructive. I have heard stories, but just never realized how bad they are. There is a cat that has been howling under my bedroom window at night....if I have to put up with that, I hope it is doing some vole control at least. I don't know who the cat belongs to. I have 3 indoor cats.

When reading though the website posted above...there could be several factors that helped this to happen. One we put up a solid wood fence last summer. Two We added a lot of compost in the fall...and it snowed a lot early...we didn't even get a chance to put all the compost on the gardens....there is still a pile sitting there. Three, my neighbours have all sorts of garbage sitting in their yard...up against the fence and all over....Bi-law made them clean it out last fall because of the bears....but it has accumulated again over the winter. Just a couple of days ago, I went along my driveway and cleaned up the garbage that was comming through under the fence. Eeewww!!!

I wasn't planning on making changes to the garden, I just add to it each year....but yes, I am trying to keep positive here. :-)

Sierra

Took a walk around the garden last evening. There is damage to two roses, the two nanking cherries, several spireas, and they even went after the parsnips that were left in the veggie garden. I found what looked like several nests in the the flag iris, daylilies and peonies. There were some small lily bulbs in these nests...don't know if its the center of the larger bulbs they shredded or just whole small bulbs they took to their nests.....but I picked them up and brought them in...they will be potted up today. I don't know if the flag iris, daylilies and peonies are damaged or if they just made their nests on the top...I'm afraid to look. The largest perennial bed is still covered with snow...so still don't know what damage is there.

On a happier note, the Crocus are still blooming up by the house....and the ones in the front raised beds are just starting to bloom. There are buds on some of the other small bulbs in the front raised beds as well.....I can't wait to see them bloom, hope they don't get munched first.

Sierra....sigh

Oh Sierra, I'm just sick for you thinking about this. If you don't have kids or pets I would certainly use baits or call in an exterminator. The sooner you get a jump on them the better off you'll be. Hang in there as best you can.

MeMo

((( Sierra)))how frustrating for you. I agree with MeMo above, you just have to show them who's the boss, good luck, M

Sierra, how devastating for you, to go out and find all that damage, it would have brought me to tears, I can be a pretty tough cookie when life throws me a curve, but when it comes to my garden, I'm very vulnerable, my garden is my sanctuary. I do hope there is a quick end to the problem.

A......

Dear Sierra,

I'm so sorry to hear about all your beautiful plants. You mentioned squirrels - they are very aggressive and will do this type of damage. They, unfortunately, love lilies and tulips. I've stopped planting them because nothing seems to stop them - I tried netting, hiding them under the leaves. The dogs are the only thing that stop them but this only works in my back yard. The squirrels roam at large in the front though.

I would say the best remedy is to plant things that they don't find palatable like daffodils, hyancinth, muscari - spring bulbs.

They also have a tendency to leave alone the native plants as well like trilliums, jack in pulpit, mayapple, virginia waterleaf.

You could also try getting a small dog like a beagle, spaniel, or schaunzer as someone else suggested. Little hunting dogs tend to be quite effective but they also are kinder on the garden then the larger breeds which may crush some things.

Hope you were able to salvage some of the plants.

Sierra,

We have a terrible time with squirrels and I always cringe when I hear about how people are trying to attract squirrels to their yard. They are very destructive, to everything. The ones around my neighborhood are very tame and have adapted very well to the presence of people and their pets. ( It didn't help that my next door neighbor started hand feeding them sunflower seeds. She finally stopped when they decided to chew on her roof's shingles for dessert!)

I made a decision several years ago to remove all my bird feeders after doing some research. When you have a bird feeder, you don't feed just birds..you feed rats, mice, and squirrels. Plus you attract their predators to your feeders. Instead, I've planted more berry producing bushes that the birds enjoy feasting on, in addition to the shelter it provides. This change has helped so much!

If you have feeders, you might try removing them, gradually, and see if that doesn't cut down on the rodent population.

Good Luck!
Marilyn

Yes it is very frustrating. I am pretty sure the damage is caused by field mice...voles....colonies of them by the look of it. The squirrels will steal the bird seed and the occassional strawberry, and even chop the heads off some of the flowers in the back yard...but that is all during the summer. We are going to talk to an exterminator in the next couple of days and see what they say can be done about the voles...safely. My concern is the neighbourhood kids, cats and dogs and even the wildlife that is around here.

I bought 2 daylilies 'raspberry pixie' and 'Catherine Woodbury', and 3 roses 'Morden Ruby' 'Treresa Bugnet' and 'William Baffin' last night....for some replacement plants....they won't be planted out yet of course...

Sierra