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Gardening
with Mountain Wildlife
by Sandy
Hollingsworth, Master Gardener
Is something nibbling at your flowers and plants? Figuring out which
mountain critter is to blame is the first step to taking preventative
measures in your garden.
Identifying
Hints:
Deer
leave a rough shredded and unclean bite and tend to eat mostly grass
in the early spring and mostly other plants in the summer and fall,
to strip bark without leaving teeth marks and to browse, especially
at the 4 – 5 feet level.
Elk
are grazers, eating mostly grasses. They eat until the plant is
completely gone and will pull the roots out; they leave tooth marks
when stripping off the bark of soft trees like aspen.
Rabbits leave a clean, neat, 45º cut — primarily
on leafy vegetables and grasses.
Voles
leave irregular gnaw marks on the bark at the base of trees and
shrubs. They also leave narrow teeth marks on low branches. They
create runways above and burrows below the ground, plus the ground
becomes spongy. They feed on grasses, flowers and crops above ground.
Pocket gophers feed on roots and leave solid “logs”
of dirt above ground when the snow melts which may bury your perennials.
Chipmunks will often eat just the buds off of plants,
soft pinecones and leafy vegetables.
Deterrents:
To keep wildlife
out of your garden, try barriers such as fencing, netting, tubing
around the base of trees, edging 6” below the surface and
resistant planting. Add resistant plants at the edges of your garden
or property to create an uninviting barrier. Keep in mind that no
plant is truly deer proof, but many are less desirable due to their
unsavory taste, texture, scent or even toxicity. Wildlife resistant
planting is referred to as camouflage gardening. Some resistant
perennial plants include thyme, artemisia, yarrow, bee balm, catmints
and hyssops. Pots of lavender and annual verbenas are also helpful.
Additionally,
animals stepping on woolly or creeping thyme will have their sense
of smell confused. Pine, balsam and camphor are other aromatics
that can overwhelm a creatures sense of smell. Fuzzy plants like
lambs ear will tickle their mouth and irritate their gut. Tough,
woody plants will deter eating since they are harder to chew and
digest. Plants that are considered toxic include barberry, cotoneaster,
digitalis, annual alyssum and dead nettle. Gardeners may also try
deterrents such as a 20% egg and water solution, hot sauce in water
or commercial preparations. (Keep in mind that each of these mixtures
requires frequent reapplication to be effective.)
Some animals,
like deer, are curious and will try a new plant once, especially
in drought conditions when the pickings are slim. Interspersing
resistant plants with wildlife favorites will help deter browsing.
Placing the most desirable plants in the back of the garden can
also help. Keeping grasses and weeds trimmed near garden beds will
deter voles by reducing their cover. And some gardeners choose to
have a sacrificial garden bed away from their prized display garden
– offering the wildlife a bite to eat on a first come first
served basis!
For more information
on specific problem animals, go to the Wildlife
Conflict Fact Sheets
For more information
contact your local CSU Cooperative Extension Office and ask for
a Master Gardener or Extension Agent.
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