What's doing this to my garden?!
Mondegreen
Posts: 17
Hi everyone,
I woke up this morning to find certain patches of my garden completely ruined 
. Something has come in during the night and not just trampled half the beds but also seemingly pulled or bitten at a lot of the plants and left the debris in random piles around the place. Something similar happened two nights ago but on a smaller scale: half the rudbeckia bed was destroyed and a snap dragon was bullied. I'm in very suburban London so I'm discounting deer 
, and I assumed it was just maybe some foxes or cats having a fight and rolling round the place.
BUT this morning it's so much worse, the rest of the rudbeckia bed has basically been cleared, it's taken offence to the clematis and pulled them off their trellises, destroyed the sweetpeas, knocked over quite a big potted quince, and managed to knock a few of the path bricks (which are only lying there so no cement or anything) out of place.
I'm not sure what could have done this; I'm trying to trace a route in my head to find out what the animal was trying to get at, but the damage seems a bit arbitrary, the plants aren't blocking a path or blocking access to the fence (to jump over it), so it just seems odd. Any ideas?
A few days ago this bed had about 7 bushy rudbeckia plants in it (as well as a wildflower mix), and yesterday that trellis had sweetpeas growing about 2ft up it.
The other side of the bed
Difficult to see because of the morning light, but most of that clematis has been pulled off the trellis and the rest has been pulled down by a foot or so. The dwarf dahlia (can't remember its proper name) has been flattened, and you can't see it from this picture but random branches of rosemary have just been cut/bitten off.
I can take more pictures this evening if needed. I am a bit gloomy thanks to all this; the garden was just coming together! I did loads of work on it yesterday that has mostly just been reversed, so feeling a bit disheartened.
Posts
Are there any prints in the mud that could identify the culprit?
I know they have foxes in the cities could it be this and they or it is looking for food?
if you could buy or borrow a night sensor camera you could set that up and see.
i did this and got some lovely shots of badgers in my garden.
My first thought was badgers, but I would have thought there would have been digging ... so maybe young foxes 'playing'
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
my first thought was foxes too.
I get badgers and foxes through my garden every night and they have never done anything like this. I think you would have heard fighting cats - they make a lot of noise. In fact, I can't imagine any animal making such a mess. It is very upsetting - I hope you are able to sort it out.
Whenever I have Badgers in the garden, there are always signs of digging, so I am inclined to go with foxes.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
We have lots of foxes around here - usually I don't go a day without seeing one - and I've even seen them in my garden. BUT, they (and the neighbourhood cats) are generally pretty delicate as they forage around (except for going to the toilet in the beds!). They usually gingerly pick their way round the plants if they go into the beds at all. The trampling of the rudbeckia bed I could understand, but the clematises off the trellises struck me as a bit odd - they're not exactly in the way!
I imagine it must have been some excitable foxes rolling around, I just found it weird that it's happened twice. The fence at the back would be easy to get over, not sure about going under or going through it if it were a badger.
I'm happy that the damage has mostly been limited to annuals and plants that I could easily grow again, but I only have one bed left at this point and it's mostly perennials that I would be very sad to lose! I'll try to secure the fence tonight in the vain hope it may help.
Cats wouldn't do that, they have no interest in plants other than digging over their smallish toiletting area. Could be hedgehogs, I had a pair of those in the garden once and they were quite destructive. I suggest putting up a tent overnight in your garden whatever it is will surely wake you up and you can go and have a look.