Can you pick the herbivore from the insectivore?

 

I was in a rose garden earlier this week where a very nice Hybrid Tea rose bush was laying on the ground.  I knew that this was the work of a gopher and when I reached to pick the bush up the bush had NO roots at all.  Gophers, voles and Moles do not hibernate but continue to feed all winter but how they feed is very different.

Gophers and Voles are both herbivores.  They eat plants and plant roots.  Both are very harmful to the rose garden and they seem to like the biggest healthiest rose bushes in the garden.  The Pocket Gopher gets its name from the fur lined pockets on either side of its mouth.  It uses these pockets to carry the material it harvest back to its den.  I found a den of a gopher once under a pave stone that had been buried under several inches of mulch.  When I lifted the stone I got a very good look at how the Pocket Gopher lives.  His den was divided up into sleeping area and storage areas.  In storage were rose leaves, roots and pieces of new canes. He had been very busy reading himself for winter.  You will hardly if ever see a Pocket Gopher but they do come up from below at night and can sometimes be spotted running across the garden in the dark.The best sign you will have of a pocket gopher is the mounds of soil it leaves in your yard.  The mounds can be 1 foot tall and when you look down on them they are shaped a bit like a horse shoe with on area being indented to the center.  These mounds are the result of the pocket gophers tunneling activity.  Pocket gophers are solitary animals most of the year.Only during mating season and pupping are there more then one to a tunnel system.  A pocket gopher can tunnel 40' in one night and leave several mounds in its wake which makes us think that there must be a bunch of them but that isn't the fact. They mate in late winter and pup a few weeks later.  They are rodents and are continuously needing to ware down their teeth and will therefore chew on underground water pipes, electric wire and a whole lot of roots.

Control of pocket gophers is best done with poison bait put in the tunnel with a gopher tool.  Roses inc. always has Gopher Tools and bait in stock.  Poison peanuts, smoke bombs, and most baits do not work for gophers and are a waste of time and money.  The bait is placed in the tunnel near a mound.  Look down on the mound from above and fins the indentation and measure approximately 4 inches out and stick the probe in the soil.  You will feel the void when it hits the tunnel.  Release the poison and remove the tool.  The hole left by the tool should be covered with a clot so as little disturbance as possible is done to the baiting site.  The gopher will eat the poison very soon and die immediately in its den.  As long as the dead gopher is in the tunnel no other gopher will occupie it.  The length of time it takes for the body to completely decay will depend on the moisture and temperature condition of the soil. I would discourage the use of traps since the removal of the gopher from the tunnel is like throwing up a tunnel for sale sign to the next gopher looking for a ready made home.  Once a gopher is removed from a tunnel another will move in very quickly.  There are people making a living by trapping the same tunnels time after time throughout the year. 

Voles are also rodents and are often mistaken for rats running across the streets at night.  Voles also leave mounds in the yard but their mounds are not as compact and high as a gopher but spread out in a loose pile.  They can be exterminated in the same way though the tunnels are a bit more difficult to find.  Many times just probing the mulch covering the rose beds will be all it takes to find the shallow burrows.  Baiting under buildings and spaces too small for domestic animals is also a very effective way to kill voles.  One curious thing about voles is their curiosity.  They will sometime walk right up to you in the garden as if to check you out.  This has happened several times to me and I thought is was kinda cute until the roses started missing roots. 

The poor maligned Mole

Moles do not eat vegetation!  They are insectivores and live soley on earthworms as long as they have a supply available.  During times of a limited earthworm supply they will eat grubs to keep from dieing but will starve to death rather than eat vegetation.  Moles make the raised tunnels you see in the yard and garden.  The only harm they do is the loosening of new plants roots by tunneling near them looking for prey.  They loosen packed earth and permit water to penetrate the soil. 

If you want to rid your yard of them there is a special bait that works very well which we stock at Roses inc.  Again poison peanuts, smoke bombs, and seed baits will not work.  Cyanide gas is affective in some cases but because it is difficult to get to circulate throughout the tunnel it is only marginally effective.

 

For more information about the control of these and other pest in the yard and garden you may come by or contact me by phone or e-mail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Winter tool Maintenance

Every now and then I make a blunder that is totally uncalled for.  I do or rather don't do something that I know will cause me trouble.  Last week I did one of those things.  I was spraying in the greenhouse and when I was finished I did not wash out the sprayer.  My reasoning was that I will need to spray this same material in a couple of days and since it is stable in solution (most spray material is not)I can just leave it to use the next time. WRONG!  When I tried to use the sprayer the next time it was so gummed up it would barely work.  I was correct about the spray still being potent but I failed to consider the consequence of leaving the spray solution in the sprayer.  My next 2 hours was spent cleaning out the sprayer and freeing up the pump so I could use it again. The moral to this story is to practice what I preach. If you have kept your sprayer clean after every use this past year it should need very little maintenance this winter.  Just lubricate the moving parts on the outside of the sprayer with 3 in 1 oil.  Then depending on the sprayer you are using you may need to lubricate the slide on the inside of the sprayer.  This is best done with vegetable oil.  Vegetable oil will lubricate the slide, revitalize the seals and the residue will not harm your roses. 
Now if you did a Mark and failed to clean out your sprayer the task will be a bit more involved.  You must first remove the residue from the tank and pump.  If it is not too bad you can do this with dish liquid and hot water.  Fill the sprayer with hot tap water and dish liquid and spray the liquid through the pump for a minute or so.  It is best to take the nozzle off the sprayer/wand before you do this.  Next let the sprayer set for 15 minutes and then after vigorously shaking the sprayer, dump the content from the unit.  Next refill the sprayer with hot water and spray it again for a minute or two.  Replace the nossel and verify that the sprayer works properly.  If this procedure does not work you will need to purchase spray tank cleaner and follow the instruction on the label.  We stock Spray tank cleaner in our store.

Winter is a great time to make sure your pruning tools are sharp and the rust if any is removed.  It is good to first remove the rust and dirt from the pruners.  A wire brush is great for this job.  Wear gloves so you do not stick your hands and brush the tool until all of the rust and dirt are removed. The next step is to sharpen the tool. Most pruners or loopers are best sharpened with a fine metal file.  The use of honing stones or blade sharpeners is really not the best method to get an edge that will cut for a long time.  You see, these devices actually get the blades too sharp.  This makes them great for the first few cuts but they dull quickly and then you are left with pruners that are making ragged cuts and damaging the canes.  The file leaves behind a fine serration which helps the pruners cut cleanly without dulling after a few cuts.  Next we need to verify that the pruner blades are by passing correctly.  This can be checked by attempting to move the  the handles at right angles opposite of one another.  If you can move the handles you will see a gap between the blades.  This gap will prevent the pruners from making a clean cut no matter how sharp they are.  To adjust the blades you will need to use a wrench and maybe a screw driver to tighten the pivot bolt until the play between the blades is removed.  When the bolt is tensioned properly the bale will move past the anvil smoothly and the spring will open them up again with ease.  Now that they are clean Sharp and adjusted it is time for the finial step in the process.  Lubricate the action and coat all of the metal surfaces with oil.  I have found that 3 in 1 oil on a cotton cloth is great for this. 

Winter is also a good time to lubricate your wagons, wheel barrows, etc.  I also use this time to clean and sharpen my shovels and hoes and make sure the handles are in good shape.  Once again the wire brush and file with a rubdown of some 3 in 1 oil at the end will do the trick  

Now you are ready for spring.