Monthly Archives: April 2013

gopher control, moles, voles

Gophers & Gardeners

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Do you walk in your garden and see mounds of fresh soil? Maybe it's a trail of raised earth snaking across the lawn you see as you look outside the kitchen window drinking your morning coffee. We all have a gopher, mole or a vole story to share. Tragedy strikes when your 15 year old apple tree suddenly fails and OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAthere'll be no apple pie this year.

I remember my first flower and vegetable garden. It was glorious. I was devastated, however, when the first of the border marigolds were sucked back into the earth one at a time. Then the tomatoes went. Finally, my prize zinnias were victimized.  I won't go into how the problem was solved but it involved a bassett hound named after a popular green apple.

There are better ways to deal with problem critters in the garden and at a recent workshop at UC Farm & Garden I learned from an expert that now is the optimum time to stop them.

Thomas Whittman first became interested in gardening as a student at UCSC. He helped build the garden. Later as an organic farmer at Molino Creek Farm up the coast he again encountered gophers, moles and voles that played havoc with the growing of produce. About 15 years ago he started his own business, Gophers Limited, to educate and provide his services in the control of garden critters without poisons.

Thomas pointed out that simply poisoning a gopher, mole or vole doesn't solve the problem as the feeding burrows are re-occupied sometimes within hours. Also those anti-coagulant toxins can be passed on to pets,  hawks and other predators that might eat them. That's why he advocates the use of mechanical live and lethal trapping methods in the place of poisons.  Preserving our environment and water resources is his top priority.

Did you know that gophers are solitary, nocturnal, territorial and active year round? All those mounds you see are created by one animal as the female will drive off her young after just a few weeks of giving birth. If you dispatch a female before she gives birth in the spring you can often solve your problem. Don't give her the chance to have another litter in June. She can live for 3-5 years.

There are no gophers in the Northeast but the Golden gopher of the Midwest is twice as large as our Pocket gopher who got it's name as they love to store food in side pockets inside their head. Gophers love sprouts and apples and will gorge themselves to destruction if they are plentiful.

Perhaps you have a mole problem and are not troubled by gophers. Gophers Limited website can teach you how to tell the difference.  Moles are carnivores and are one of the oldest animals on the planet. Arriving in our neck of the woods 40 thousand years ago via the land bridge that used to exist between Asia and Alaska, they are smarter than gophers. Members of the shrew family, they are hard to outsmart. In the 13th century the word shrewd came from these wily creatures.

Thomas mainly uses cinch traps for the control of gophers and trains others in their use. Other traps like the macabee trap need to be set up in the main burrow and this excavation takes longer than the 20 seconds required for a surface trap like the cinch. His website has many tutorials on traps and other methods of control. When the country fair comes around in September I'll be sure to look at the Agriculture History display of gopher traps dating back to the early 1900's.

I enjoyed a lively discussion of urban myths regarding gopher control. Juicy Fruit gum is not effective per studies at UC Davis. Chocolate ex-lax has not been studied so the jury is out on that one. Putting glass or dried rose cuttings with thorns down a hole is effective as gophers are hemophiliacs and will bleed to death if cut. Castor oil is effective for a short time as is coyote, cat or any other urine. Fish emulsion or meat products are deterrents as gophers are committed vegetarians. After trapping, Wittman always leaves the dead gopher in the hole. He claims they "get the message".

Are there plants that gophers won't eat? Wittman claims that he has seen gophers repeatedly avoid lavender, sage or salvia, rosemary, thyme and oregano. As a designer I have a slightly longer list of gopher resistant plants   but always recommend planting in stainless steel gopher baskets anyway.

I have to chuckle at a list of plants supposedly not on a gopher's menu that I found in a magazine several years ago. Apapanthus was on the list. Wittman smiled as he shared some of his personal slides of huge gopher burrows right underneath an agapanthus. A female gopher gets her water from roots and hopefully it won't be from your favorite apple, camellia or daylily.

There is much more useful and educational information on Thomas Wittman's website.
Visit http://www.gopherslimited.com/

Deer Resistant Plants, flowering shrubs, Flowering trees, green design, vines

The Hillbilly Gardener of Scotts Valley

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anemone_clematis_vineThe self -described "Hillbilly Gardener" lives In the banana belt above Scotts Valley Civic Center. Technically, Richard Hencke says he is 1/4 German, 1/4 irish, and 1/2 hillbilly from his childhood in Texas and Oklahoma. A true gardener at heart, Richard spends much of his time as an emergency room doctor at a local hospital and the rest of his time tending his garden. With trees and plants collected in his early  days as a Boy Scout in Port Arthur, Texas, as well as plants acquired from the far corners of the earth he has created a spectacular landscape surrounding his home. "They'll carry me out of this property in a pine box", Richard says. He clearly loves his personal arboretum.

On a clear spring day recently, Richard gave me the royal tour. I visited this garden 2 years ago and I couldn't help but be impressed with incredible growth he has coaxed from his many blooming trees, conifers and vines.
The Pride of Madeira spikes glowed in the sun, some cobalt blue, others vivid purple. Early spring blooming shrubs and perennials offered color at every turn.

One of his passions is allowing flowering vines that grow up into the canopy of his trees which adds one more dimension to his landscaping. A Blood Red trumpet vine is happily inching up a redwood trunk while a butter yellow rosa banksia scrambles into an oak. On a fence along a walk a spectacular blooming double white pandorea vine has found a home in a Butternut tree he got in Pennsylvania. A rose colored anemone clematis nearly covered the trunk and branches of a dormant catalpa.

Fragrance and color as well as good "bones" or structure make Richard's garden breathtaking. He nurtures each seedling with the same care he gives to the large trees. I laughed as he pointed out a 15 ft tall aralia elata that was transplanted from a tiny dish garden received many years ago as a gift. One of his favorite trees is a white pine gleaned from his grandmother's place in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. A black cottonwood he picked up in New England, 2 maples hail from New Orleans and the sisal agave grew from tiny pups he found at a rest stop on Hwy 280 in case he ever wants to make rope or twine.

Richard likes to naturalize Hawaiian native plants starting them mostly from seed collected while on vacation. He has several Sacred Koa or A'ali'i growing on the property. Since this dodonaea species grows at 5000 ft elevation up Moana Loa they have adapted nicely to his Scotts Valley climate. I wouldn't be surprised if Richard goes into the canoe or lei making business when his trees grow up.

A small portion of Richard's garden is fenced but most is open to the deer. So far the branches growing eutaxia_obovatathrough the fence of his bright golden pea-like Eutaxia obovata have not attracted them. Also known as Egg and Bacon shrub this plant is a compact shrub originating from Western Australia. It's graceful fountain shape really shows off the thousands of flowers adorning the branches.

Like all devoted gardeners, Richard likes to share plants with others. A couple of years ago he sent me home with one of his F-2 hybrid Douglas iris and this year a dendrobium orchid. I'm hoping more of his cuttings of the Sacred Flower of the Andes ( Cantua ) take and maybe I'll be lucky to get one of these, too. A day in Richard's garden is always a magical experience.

California Native Plants, Deer Resistant Plants, flowering shrubs, flowers, wildlife gardening

Spring Flowering Shrubs

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In the spring we are surrounded by flowers of every color. It's our reward after the winter. My heart goes out to those gardeners in other parts of the country where snow still covers their perennial beds. The availability of winter sports only goes so far as consolation for all that white stuff. I've lived along the coasts of California my whole life and personally, I'd rather be sitting out in my garden enjoying the birds gathering nesting material than planning the summer garden on paper.  But I digress. Early spring flowering shrubs are getting my attention these days and here are a couple of varieties that you'll want in your garden, too.

ceanothus_Celestial_Blue 2There's a ceanothus for every garden. You can't have too many of these workhorses in the landscape. They range from groundcover types for erosion control to shrubs for screens and accents. A new variety I've recently learned about from my friend and fellow Press Banner columnist, Colly Gruczelak, is called Celestial Blue. She planted several 2 years ago from 4" mail order sleeves and now they are 3 ft tall and 4 ft wide. In her sandy garden, home to her personal deer population, the flowers look like blueberry sherbet.

With a light fragrance, described as grape tart, this medium shrub makes a good screen or accent. This cultivar is probably a hybrid of Julia Phelps and Concha. A horticultural cultivar is simply a plant variety that's been selected specifically for gardens.  Celestial Blue flowers 9 months a year especially in the summer when it explodes with rich purplish blue flowers.

Ceanothus provide excellent habitat for birds and insects. They are good for attracting bee and fly pollinators and are the larval host plants for the beautiful Ceanothus Silkmoth. Ceanothus seed is readily eaten by many local birds. Even a deer resistant plant like ceanothus may have its new tasty growth tip-pruned in spring and summer. Think of this as natures way of producing a well shaped shrub, dense and compact.

Planting a ceanothus is an important step to attracting more birds and wildlife to your garden.
rhododendron_occidentale 2
Want even more fragrance in your early spring garden? Plant a Western azalea, the common name for rhododendron occidentale. One of our most beautiful native shrubs in the Coast Ranges it grows also on the western side of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada mountains.

Western azaleas were described by explorers in western North America in the 1800's. The plant contributed to the development of deciduous hybrid azaleas in Great Britain such as the Exbury azalea.

If you're out hiking you'll know you are near a stand of these awesome shrubs by the sweet and spicy clove scent reminiscent of cottage pinks and carnations. Western azaleas are tolerant of our native serpentine soils which are high in iron and magnesium. Like many of our western shrubs, they have the capacity to resprout from the ground if the top has been destroyed by fire as long as the root system remains intact.

To grow Western azaleas in the garden provide routine moisture and keep the roots cool by shading the root zone with a deep mulch. Protect them from hot afternoon sun. Also to prevent late summer mildew provide air circulation by growing them in open areas not crowded among understory plantings or in dead air spaces under eves.

Give this lovely native shrub aloropetalum_chinense 2 try. It's a wonderful addition to your garden. Visit some of them in Henry Cowell and Big Basin to see them first hand this spring.

My other favorite early spring blooming shrubs are Lily-of-the-Valley shrubs. I especially like a two-tone dark rose variety called Dorothy Wyckoff although those with pure white flowers are spectacular in the garden, too.
The white flowers of loropetalum chinense or Fringe Flower are even more showy than its pink flowering relatives.
Add a graceful, double butter yellow flowering kerria japonica to your landscape, too. Your spring garden will be a rainbow of color.