What ate my plants!??

[Steve]

So I was expecting a lovely spring with my blooming dianthus and other plants but something is either eating my plants from above or beneath or both. As you can see from the pictures, something has been digging and eating my plants. I have posted some photos from today and others from a few years back as comparison. I am not exactly sure how to treat this. Any suggestions on how to go forward is much appreciated.

I cut down the dead branches of these daises this year. You can see the holes where something is digging.


About 3/4 of this plant is missing.


Now.




Before.

 

[Chuck]

I think I am safe in saying that you have a colony of field rats eating your plants. See that hole next to the brick wall and the hole next to it? Rats always have an entrance and an exit. Rake back your mulch and I bet you will find trails and tunnels.

 

[Steve]

There are plenty of holes everywhere after looking around. They do seem to tunnel underground. What should or what can I do??

 

[Chuck]

There are plenty of holes everywhere after looking around. They do seem to tunnel underground. What should or what can I do??

Do you have small pets or do your neighbors? How squeamish are you and what area do you live?

 

[Steve]

We have no pets. I don't believe our neighbors do either. I live in a rural area in NE NC. I'm thinking about De Con for the holes from away from the house and maybe traps unbaited for a couple of days then set to catch them. I hate to think of a rat eating Decon and dying under the house.

 

[Chuck]

We have no pets. I don't believe our neighbors do either. I live in a rural area in NE NC. I'm thinking about De Con for the holes from away from the house and maybe traps unbaited for a couple of days then set to catch them. I hate to think of a rat eating Decon and dying under the house.

Let me get back to you tomorrow AM. I don't have time at the moment to explain what to do.

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum Steve! Sorry to hear about your pest problem, it's such a shame that they got to your dianthus because it looked beautiful previously. Looks like Chuck has some good advice for you, so I hope it's sorted soon.

 

[Chuck]

Do you have small pets or do your neighbors? How squeamish are you and what area do you live?

Rats are survivors and extremely smart with a keen sense of smell. I have been fighting them for many years in my vegetable gardens. You can use dCon and it will kill a few of them but they will soon stop going near it. It looks like your garden is fairly good sized so I would imagine you have a good number actually living there plus in the surrounding areas also. There are only 3 ways to deal with rats, by either poisoning them, trapping them or gassing them. Poison works good.......at first. Rats are cannibalistic and when one is poisoned and weakened the others will attack and eat it but with poison in its system the rats soon learn to stay away from the poison. I have used various types of poison on them in sucession with only moderate success. Rats aren't like mice. You can eliminate entire colonies of mice with dCon easily. Not so with rats. I trap rats in 3 ways. With conventional Victor spring traps, by gallon glass jugs and by the sticky glue traps. On the Victor traps I don't use the larger Rat Trap,. I have found that sometimes a big rat will either run off with the trap or somehow escape. I use mouse traps. A mouse trap will invariably catch a rat right across his eyes and he is DRT. For the glass jars I get a small mouth gallon size pickle jar, put a slice or two of canteloupe peels and bury the jug at a 45' angle. The rat smells it, climbs in and can't get out. To kill the rat put the lid back on and let it sufficate. Afterwards wash the jar and with latex gloves on reset it. With the sticky traps I get an old piece of 1x4 or 1x6 board and staple the sticky tape to it and set them out in different places once you catch one. I don't recommend gassing them. It is just too dangerous. Been there, done that and have the chared T-shirt to prove it. And the bait I use on the victors is a thick mixture of peanut butter and wild bird seed

 

[Steve]

Chuck, I appreciate your feedback. I think I will try a bit of everything you suggested to get rid of these rats. We have a lot of road construction going on and I believe these are displaced rats looking for a new home.

Thanks, Becky for your comments. Here are a few other pictures I took at the same time as above. I enjoy gardening immensely. I added the same kind of picture twice but couldn't figure out how to delete it but anyway..

 

[Becky]

That's so pretty, I love all the bright colours! I like the addition of the hanging basket, I wouldn't have thought to do that but it adds some height and interest.

 

[Buggs81]

Those holes are definitely from voles or some call field mice. They were horrible where I used to live and they would destroy my yard and flowers. They are really hard to get rid of. In the winter, they would live under the snow and make nests and eat up all the grass in my yard. In the spring, when all the snow melts there would be bare patches of grass everywhere from them.