Night-time creature digging up lawns/plants/bulbs
colonel13
Posts: 9
Earlier this year I woke up several times to find that in the front garden something had dug up most of my tulip bulbs (when they had been flowering). I kept diligently replanting them but it kept happening.
Nothing has happened since, but the other day, after a weekend of gardening and tidying up (weeding and planting more tulips (buried much deeper this time) and some poppies), I woke to find that 50% of the lawn has been pulled up in clumps, and that 5 of the 6 poppy plants had been dug up. It didn't touch the tulip bulbs or the newly cleared patch of earth - perhaps it didn't know they were down there.
Is this a badger? We live at the end of a cul-de-sac and on the other side of our garden fence is a lot of fields etc (that I would have expected to be inhabited by foxes and badgers - there are woods nearby but they are a 10 minute walk away through the fields).
I have included pictures.
Please help!
Posts
Could well be a badger. But they wouldn't be looking for bulbs - just worms and the like.
Did you sprinkle anything like bonemeal or BFB on that area that may have attracted them?
I get the occasional badger doing some digging in the lawn, they can do a lot of damage as they're so powerful.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
And sadly they do dig for and eat bulbs. We lost over 1,000 tulips to them this year. Badgers do a lot of damage and it is hard to stop them coming in. You need to find where they are coming in and block it off.
Thanks so much for the replies. I didn't put a thing on the grass to be honest (as you can see it really needs a good cut), or on the soil for that matter, but I had done a lot of digging there and turning over of the soil and I brought up a lot of worms so that might have been the attraction. I will do my best to seal up the area but it's going to be tricky. I also got my husband to 'water' some of the area near the fence as I read that the sent of another creatures urine would put off a badger from entering.
Berghill I'm so sorry to hear about your tulips - I would completely devastated. So far I've got about 80 in the front. I wait with trepidation for the spring!
I had this problem last year and blamed it on the badgers. We have blocked everywhere that badgers could enter but sadly the lawn has been ripped up again - so cross as it was looking lovely. Now I am tending to blame the squirrels (I caught one in the act and they dig quite deep). I've just come on here to see if anyone knows of a squirrel deterrent - I'm about to give mothballs a go.
Squirrels - that's interesting. We definitely have a lot of squirrels around. But what are they looking for?? I didn't know they dug. I haven't heard of mothballs as a squirrel deterrent before. I shall have a look into it.
I think they are burying nuts although they're not burying just digging and I've found no nuts/acorns. I came across the mothball idea on YouTube. We have squirrels in the loft too ??
I would think squirrels. The little B*****S dig up anything.
That is why all my pots of newly planted with spring bulbs in are covered over with chicken wire.
Our next door neighbours have an enormous oak tree which rains acorns into the bottom corrner of our garden, the lawn is pitted with little holes where they have buried the acorns.
'You must have some bread with it me duck!'
Secondborn had problems at her last house with Badgers digging up the lawn. Her Neighbour was feeding them. Looked very similar to the problems you are having. She blocked up the gaps, painted the fence with creosote and her partner painted mail urine along the boundary. It stopped them and she had no more trouble.
Tulips are usually too deep for squirrels. Or they should be if they're planted correctly!
They normally get crocus, anemones, or the little alliums etc as they're small and not too deep for them to get out. They love my sphaerocephalon alliums...
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...