voles

Do you have any ground hogs/woodchucks. I never had my coon family chew or possums. A big frisky young dog will chew anything.

Voles seem to be the biggest problem where predators can't get to them, such as in a garage or under the protective cover of mulch or snow. In Connecticut a mild winter implies little snow cover, but I assume that varies according to where you live.

Garden Delight kind of looks like freeze damage. As though the cane split when the cells burst in a sudden freeze. I'm probably not seeing it right thou. The tree is horribly damaged. Can't imagine a rabbit going after such a thick trunk.

Whoops, you're right Patty. I posted the wrong photo of Garden Delight canes. Here's the one that shows pretty extensive chew damage. You can see the damage extends up a good 12-18 inches, and I've seen damage as high as 3 feet off the ground on some roses, which doesn't sound entirely like small animals like voles.I've never seen any vole trails in our yard or neighbor's yards, though it doesn't mean they're not there. You're right that we had a mild winter, with very little snow that lasted, so there wasn't the chance to gnaw below the snowline.

Below is a sample cane from about 3' off the ground, with damage extending solidly for a good 18". It seems like whatever is doing this is stripping off the bark, rather than gnawing through per se. As far as I know we don't have any woodchucks and any big dogs would be kept out by the large yard fence (these were all in the fenced-off back yard) as well as the smaller wire rabbit fences.

I welcome any ideas of what I might be able to do about this at this point as well, particularly the apple tree, since that is the most viciously chewed of them. Makes me frustrated with whatever critter(s) are involved, since it's all over the yard in multiple different beds but on apparently selected roses within each area. Since fencing doesn't seem to keep them out, I'm not sure how to handle this if it recurs in another year.

Thanks so much for the ideas you've offered!

Cynthia

My garden used to have rabbits in it until I built a fence and sank it under the ground. I have seen that damage by rabbits as well as squirrels. Wire cages seem to be the cheapest way to discourage rabbits. Just make sure you bend the top of the wire over enough to let the rose grow up.

I came back to mention squirrels but oldrosarian beat me to it. It was on the U.S. forestry site. They mentioned the gray squirrel and another forgot the name thou.

I'll say what I always say when I see critter damage, "HOW RUDE!!!" lol

I would say squirrels or raccoons. I've had quite a bit of experience with voles, and they don't do this kind of damage. I wish I could add more, but I'll bet some judicious Googling might bring up some photos showing similar damage to yours with the culprit named as well. Diane

Years ago I bought some surveillance cameras/w night vision with recorder and caught my neighbor sprayng our flowers with weedkiller.

But cameras also come in handy for cases like this also...

I've never seen damage quite like yours nippstress so not even going to guess... Just hope you get it figured out soon! Best of luck!

I don't know if your location has them but what we call ground squirrels here do that kind of damage. They have very shallow tunnels but come up and chew the bark off of shrubs, trees etc. They like the tender growth under the layer of bark and actually prefer that over the roots.

They are extremely hard to get rid of once you have them. We have some success in getting them to move on by finding their tunnels and poking big holes in the top of the ground then putting chili powder down in the holes. They will repair tunnels but if you poke enough holes they move on to someone else's yard. There are several products on the market to kill them but are quite expensive. They breed rapidly and one female can have up to 100 a year.

Thanks for all the ideas and sympathy folks. Given the location and height of the damage, it's in a sense logical that it might be squirrels since we have plenty of them in the yard. One in particular hangs upside down on the "squirrel proof" birdfeeder and will chitter madly at me if I come up and try to scare him off. Well, I say him because my daughter named him Stuart. Turns out in springtime he's clearly a Stella, and undoubtedly some of my apple tree went to feed more mini-Stellas.

The ground squirrels sound awful Beth, but as far as I know we don't have any in our area. I've once seen something greyish skitter along the ground at the base of the tree, but I was presuming it's a mole or mouse.

At least it's nothing new as far as critters go, but it sure is frustrating. I'll go with "how rude!"

Cynthia

That makes sense the forestry service mentioned that they see that kind of damage done by pregnant squirrels. They have surmised that it helps them deal with pain. Wonder how they figured that one out. :-)

Classic Vole/Mice cane girdling damage.

It looks like mice damage. I had it at the beginning of the winter, then I did mice posion control, so this winter wasn't bad at all, but I have a lot of rabbit damage.

Interesting! So it could be mice, as I know we have plenty of those around the area. We have to keep the guinea pig food in our garage under airtight containers as it has drawn mice in the past. I'm not sure if I'd do the poison, since I suspect it would invite all the mice from the neighboring yards, but it's good to know another possible culprit.

Thanks for all the ideas, folks!

Cynthia

I agree with Ann in that vole damage around here is underground. I was left a "gift" of a dead vole right by the side entrance to our garage a couple of days ago. I assume the gift was from some neighborhood cat for use of my flower bed as a "pay" toilet. The use was obvious, and I thought it was kind of funny that I received a payment. What will it be next time? My preferred payment is in dead gophers, though. Diane

Thanks Ann for the clear indicators of vole (and I presume mouse damage?). I don't see any parallel teeth marks but instead a series of deep gouges by what looks like one maybe 1/4-1/2" tooth. All the damage I can find is above ground, in fact quite high, so that may be a counter-indicator to both voles and mice. We do have a couple of neighborhood cats 3 houses down that routinely prowl the gardens, so I'll be sure to thank them next time they slink by (particularly since they don't leave any calling cards). No house mouse problems except for after we discovered the garage mouse/mice and did a few live capture traps to send them out to the country.

My preferred payment from the prowling cats would be the pony-sized dog that lives across the street and uses our front yard (AND 6' high fenced in back yard) as a courtesy toilet. It isn't often, but my word that dog has an impressively sized set of bowels. I make sure to take one turn around the garden before working just in case, to avoid stepping backwards (or heavens, sitting in) something unmentionable.

Hey Diane, maybe you could work out a trade agreement with your cat and the working goats across your back? The cat poops on their side of the fence and the goats chase prey toward the cat. You might still get the vole offerings as the trade negotiator, but everyone involved might be happier in the long run.

Thanks again for the tips. Looks like I might be back to squirrels (or VERRRY tall rabbits) as the culprits, though I have no clue why they'd change behavior this dramatically in a mild winter. Maybe this winter I'll need to bring in some temporary goats or something.

Cynthia

Cynthia, I'm impressed with your neighbor's dog, too. Do you mean he jumps your six foot fence? Yikes! As far as the goats doing anything, they were long gone after they overstripped our end of the gully of brush. They are hired all over the area to remove brushy fire fuel, suppress noxious weeds like thistle, etc., and so work on a temp basis. After they've done their job, they are rounded up and taken to the next job in special goat trailers. The fences are also temporary.

I hope no one thinks I'm awful if I tell this story, but it solved my "dogs leaving gifts" problem. My next door neighbor refused to keep her dogs contained, and for over two years, her three dogs used my yard as a toilet, always in the same area in front of a flower bed. I caught them many times. When I told my neighbor, over and over of the situation, she would say things like...oh, I turned my invisible fence off, I guess...or one of my dogs is really old ???. She never apologized when I told her, or volunteered to clean any of the messes up. Finally, one winter, after the snow melted, I found 17 poop piles that had accumulated under the snow. I was furious, and told my son in law that I felt like shoveling it all up, putting it in a fancy shopping bag, and leaving the bag in front of the neighbor's garage door. SIL said he'd deliver the goods if I'd gather it up. So into a fancy shopping bag went the 17 piles, and SIL delivered the bag. I never had another poop problem again, though the dogs still got loose occasionally. Of course, my neighbor wasn't happy with me, but at that point I didn't care. Diane

Diane - that's a great way of making the punishment fit the crime! I'd say she must have been more aware of her dogs' behaviors than she let on, or she wouldn't have been able to change things so quickly when you dropped by the "present". Hey, at least you scooped it up for her - what's to complain about? She might have a complaint if you spread those 17 piles out on her lawn, but even there you might be arguably OK. Funny how she knew who the piles came from even without a (forgive me) calling card on the bag. At least I'm hoping she doesn't think that's what Macy's sells.

Ah, too bad about the goats - I guess they're not available for temporary use out here. Besides, I'd hesitate to let them in among the main garden for fear they'd strip every leaf off the roses. A little or even a lot of bark damage over the winter like this isn't as devastating as losing all the leaves and growing points from all the roses in a quick afternoon's buffet. Goats can be amazingly efficient, and it's surprising what they'll agree to eat. Do you mean that the thistles and things stay in check after the goats have snarfed them up? I would think those would be among the indestructible plants out there.

Oh, and I can't say for certain that the dog leaps our 6' fence, but the piles are there, and unless he opens and closes the gate by himself it's the most logical conclusion. The attraction of our yard for him escapes me, unless it's to chase the neighbor's cats that calmly slink through the fence bars. At least he doesn't bother to do this very often, but he's dumb enough to stand out in the middle of our cul-de-sac circle smiling at you when you're backing out of your driveway. Or maybe he knows he'd hurt your car worse than vice versa.

Cynthia

he he Nanadoll! lol Special delivery...lol

My outdoor cat takes care of any little rascals in my, and my neighbors yards! They absolutely love him!!! Best pest control around lol...