It’s been a while since I posted about our ongoing battles with rabbits, moles, deer, chipmunks and squirrels. We maintained a truce the last few years: We won’t trap or poison and they can do what they want. Some truce!
Now the stakes are higher with this big hole right in the middle of my peonies.
First Woodchuck Hole
Before seeing the hole I saw all this dirt shoved over the iris and peonies. Peonies won’t bloom if they are too deep and no plant will survive being buried like this forever.
Woodchuck Debris
This hole was not a surprise exactly because we saw a ground hog/woodchuck prowling in the backyard a few days earlier. I crossed my fingers and hoped he would head for part of the more than 80 acres behind our house that is wide open grasslands.
Our Backyard – Plenty of Room for Critters Behind the Fence
Lots of critters already live behind the fence. We see holes all over.
The garden dirt is nice black topsoil that we bought special for the garden as underneath the ground is poor, lots of gravel and sand. You can see our friendly woodchuck dug down far enough that all the dirt on top my plants is the sandy gravel stuff.
The hole itself is deep! Per several websites woodchucks dig runs with several access holes. We have not seen any other holes in the yard (yet).
I shoveled the heaps of dirt back into the hole but first poured rabbit repellent and squirrel repellent full strength down the hole. Then shoveled dirt, then more repellent, then the rest of the dirt and finished with even more repellent. The repellents didn’t include woodchucks in their lists of critters deterred, but since they are in the rodent family I had hopes.
Hah! Mr. Woodchuck ignored the deterrent and dug a new hole right on the side of the dirt pile. (I learned it is amazingly difficult to photograph holes in the ground.)
New Woodchuck Hole Close Up July 6, 2016
This time he made a huge mess with the dirt. He got dirt all over my iris, peonies, daylilies and he broke stems. Grr!
Woodchuck Piled Dirt on My Peonies
We are now in a state of war, Dave and me against the woodchuck invader. I’m not going to use the poisons recommended for woodchucks – some are way too similar to the poison gas from WW1 – nor do we want to risk poisoning birds or any cats that escape outside. Dave will put our large live trap out with cantaloupe and see what we can catch. Then Mr Woodchuck will take a nice long trip and I can fill in the hole once more.
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