Mystery digger

Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on September 05, 2008 at 8:20 AM, updated September 05, 2008 at 8:29 AM
Could a skunk be what dug up this gardener's new plants?
Q: I just bought a variety of new plants yesterday and planted them in a bed around the house. Today when I went out, they were all dug up. The plants weren't eaten... just broken up a bit and laying on the ground next to the hole. What could've done something like that? And how do I prevent it from happening again?

A: Assuming it's not a jealous neighbor gardener, I'd have to put my money on a fairly decent-sized bug-eater such as a skunk or raccoon. A groundhog or deer would've just eaten the plants right to the ground, while a rabbit would've at least sampled some of the plants, leaving behind their telltale, neatly snipped-off cuts as a clue. (Also little "pellets" on the ground.) Also, you wouldn't happen to have a loose dog or cat wandering around, would you?

This sounds like too big of a job for a smaller critter like a vole, squirrel or chipmunk. They would've had to work pretty hard to pull off this scale of de-planting. Maybe a vole training for the Olympic weight-lifting competition...

In any event, the fastest way to prevent a repeat is to fence off the bed with chicken wire after replanting. You won't have to keep this up forever... just long enough for the plants to root. By next summer, you should be safe.

The more aesthetic option is to spray the re-plants with an animal repellent. Garden centers have a nice selection, ranging from stinky and bitter products like Bobbex, Ro-pel and Deer Away to the actual bottled urine of predator animals such as bobcats and fox. You might need to reapply this monthly or after rains - again until the plants root.

One other thing that might help is immediately covering the bed with 2 inches of wood or bark mulch. If my theory about a mid-sized bug-eater is right, the culprit is after bugs, worms or grubs in the bed you've dug up so nicely to make foraging easier. The plants just happened to be in the way. A nice, soft dirt bed would look pretty attractive to me if I'm 1.) hungry for a big, fat worm and 2.) too lazy to dig in the hard lawn. Mulching the bed should help disguise the fact that you've loosened some ground.