How to Get Rid of Gophers in Your Garden and Save Your Plants

From the first sign of crescent shaped mounds popping up across your yard, it's game time—you need to figure out how to get rid of gophers from your garden ASAP. While these furry rodents may look cute from afar, they can do major damage to your yard and garden.

But there are methods that can help you get rid of gophers in your garden, and several can be DIYed. Ready to take your yard back from these furry critters? Here are four of the most tried and true methods to get rid of gophers.

Do You Have Gophers or Moles?

Gophers and moles are both burrowing rodents that leave a trail of mounds and dirt in their wake, but, if you want to get rid of them, you need to know which you're dealing with.

Gophers typically leave behind mounds that are shaped like a half-moon, and these mounds are spaced closely together. The mounds are rarely more than a six-foot radius from each other. Gophers also leave dead plants behind, either because they've toppled them in devouring their roots or pulled them into their tunnels.

Moles create volcano-shaped mounds that are not necessarily in close proximity. Moles also build tunnels right at the surface of the ground, which creates the appearances of ridges running across your yard. While they won't eat your plants' root systems, moles will kill grass by burrowing through its roots.

If you happen to catch a glimpse of the culprit, a gopher is typically bigger than a mole, lighter brown, and have a more stereotypical rodent appearance with a long tail, round ears, and prominent teeth. A mole is smaller, darker, and has a long pink snout.

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How to Get Rid of Gophers in Your Garden

Your method of choice to get rid of gophers in the garden will depend on the extremity of the situation and whether you need to resort to more serious options.

Scatter Pet Droppings

Scattering pet droppings around the perimeter of your garden and in gopher holes can repel gophers. Whether you have a cat or a dog, both are predators to gophers. Feline or canine droppings are a deterrent, but you can also purchase coyote urine if you don't have pets.

Fight Them With Smell

Gophers have poor eyesight, but they have an acute sense of smell. There are dozens of smells that will deter gophers, including:

• Herbs: Lavender, rosemary, and thyme.

• Coffee grounds: You can fertilize your yard while also repelling gophers. Sprinkle your leftover grounds around your garden.

• Fish: Leave fish leftovers in their tunnels to drive gophers away.

• Dryer sheets: Put scented dryer sheets into gopher holes to irritate their sense of smell and drive gophers out.

Dig a Trench and Add a Barrier

Stop gophers in their tracks by digging an 18" to 24" deep trench around the sections of your yard where they're causing commotion. Bury a wire mesh screen in the trench to prevent gophers from burrowing into your garden. Make sure there are no holes in the screen that are bigger than 3/4" wide or you could risk the gophers still finding a way through.

Set a Gopher Trap

If nothing else works, then you can set a gopher trap, but be prepared that this may be a lethal way of dealing with the gophers.

First, cover all but one of the entrances-exits that gophers have created in your yard. Then, in the remaining exit, place the gopher trap. You can add a few gopher-approved favorite foods like sweet potatoes, carrots, or potatoes to further lure them in.

Cover the hole above the trap so that no light enters the hole—you do not want to give the gopher any clues that would prevent them from entering the trap.

Check back in a few days to see if you've caught a gopher. If you have and it is still alive, call animal control for next steps.

How to Prevent Gophers From Coming Back

While there isn't a magic method to get rid of gophers permanently, you can take steps to prevent them from settling in.

You can add color and fragrance to your garden with plants that also repel gophers. Try marigolds, daffodils, lavender, rosemary, peppermint, sage, or plants from the allium family. Not only will you have a beautiful garden filled with kitchen-ready herbs, but they'll deter the gophers from hanging out.

Don't have a green thumb? You can also spray essential oils from the same plants, or try wind chimes or a sonic spike to create disruptive noises. The last thing gophers want is a loud, annoying environment—but, for you, the wind chime is a nice background noise and the sonic spike won't even register.

Lastly, you can take a garden hose to any new mounds that pop up. A gopher doesn't want to hang out in a flooded tunnel, so you'll encourage them to move along.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do gophers hate the most?

Because gophers have an incredibly strong sense of smell, they steer clear of strong herbal fragrances like lavender, eucalyptus, sage, and rosemary.

Do coffee grounds get rid of gophers?

Coffee is another odor that offends a gopher's sensitive sense of smell, so putting coffee grounds around the perimeter of your garden could keep them out.

How do professionals get rid of gophers?

Professional exterminators will come out annually to make sure they're keeping gophers away year-after-year. They typically either use traps to contain and remove the gophers or use carbon monoxide injected into gopher holes.

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Read the original article on The Spruce.