I thought today was going to be just a lovely day after Thanksgiving. Good day to get out in the garden and do some work. Yep, there's work alright. A family of raccoons invaded 3 of the 5 daylily boxes last night, digging up plants, rolling on plants and making a general mess. I'm guessing I'll lose a couple of daylilies due to this visit. Lot of roots were exposed, some plants are shredded and others are buried. The critters did a really good job of aerating the soil! Bet the worm population went down, too.

Oh well. I'm on my way out the door to purchase some moth balls. That has helped in the past.

What jerks! I have a couple squirrels that were digging in a few pots. They get chased by the dogs so hopefully they'll back off a bit.

I feel a deep sorrow for you with your raccoon problem, I have gone though that on several occasions. Also, opossums, and armadillos. I think it is a good sign your soil is healthy and has lots of earthworms, but what a mess the critters make in a garden. I finally had to trap some of them just to slow them down. Now I still often see signs of digging, but at least now the plants are not being dug up, buried, and completely shredded.
I don't know if that is because now the soil is not freshly dug (it has had several months to settle) or if it is because I have new neighbors with two large dogs I allow to visit the daylily gardens. I do that mostly to allow the dogs to leave their scent hoping it will keep the deer out of the garden, but it appears to be working for the other critters also.

Sorry to hear the raccoons made such a big mess for you. That is one critter we never have a problem with, they don't seem to come into our small town although they are out in the countryside.

The raccoons came back last night--trashed the two boxes they missed the night before and then trashed one of the boxes they had already done. A tiny fan of BLESSINGS OF FREEDOM is laying on its side (again). I'm going to pot it up so I can move it onto the patio. Humbug!

Oh no! So sorry.

Bummer. And I thought the dead squirrel somewhere in the wall of my house was bad ( can't locate it, and we have TRIED) eventually the smell will disappear!

Either squirrels or my dogs dug up so newly planted daylilies, twice, late summer. They are now popped together in the ground, mYbe they will survive, maybe they won't.

Good luck with the raccoon problem

Oh Arlene. What a mess. I'm sorry you're having animal trouble. Up here it's the deer that do the most damage.

That's terrible about the raccoons. Here it's squirrels that give me problems. I planted some new seedlings in August and I have already had to replant some of them twice. They seem to like to bury their nuts under my little baby seedlings.

Husband and I put netting over the boxes late yesterday. No damage back there, but in revenge they went to the front box and dug around. The clumps out there are much bigger so no damage to the plants.

A friend volunteered the use of his traps and he said he would take the critters and release them. We will pick the traps up today and see what happens.

Traps work, but at least for squirrels they need released within 18-24 hours or they die. So you need to check them a couple times a day and have a place to release them.

Depending on your state, you might not be able to release them just anywhere, some states you can only trap and release them on your property or kill them on your property.

I had a place to release the squirrels I caught, and again I don't know about raccoons, but I ended up transporting the squirrels 50 miles away. I am pretty sure the ones I released 5-10 miles away came back within a couple of days.

Whatever is caught at night would be relocated the next morning. Because raccoons are nocturnal trapping during the day is a non-issue. The friend said he would relocate them on the mainland if he could.

Hope you catch and relocate all the determined to wreck your garden raccoons.

We had a (so we thought) raccoon come and dig and tear-up the wood logs we had used to edge the beds with. The logs had started to rot--and had a fine meal of grubs, beetles, and blue racer eggs in them. What a mess! I was going to replace the hardwood logs with cedar (takes MUCH longer for them to rot), anyway--so that did not bother me too much except that that ended my procrastination. The thing that really P__ed me was that the raccoon tore up our little garden pool---and ate all my long-finned KOI!!
I put a trap out baited with cat food. The next morning---YEP!---a raccoon. I took it about four miles down the road to my son's land. The land is four acres surrounded by at least 500 acres of fields, forest, and woods with two streams and a large pond.
We put everything to right---and replaced the Koi with an inferior, but much more affordable, set of goldfish. They were fine until the same time the next year when we had a repeat performance of the previous year. The remaining hardwood logs were torn up---and the goldfish gone. It was then that we learned that seldom do you find a lone raccoon. They travel in packs---family units of two to 4 or more. Soooo---lesson learned. All of them (two more) were caught and placed on my son's land. They all must have been happy there because none have returned. They are opportunistic foragers. When they find a place they like---that has all that they need---that's home.
Hopefully, we will not see them again. It has been two years and no sign of them here.

Amazing, isn't it Greg. All the raccoons are looking for is worms, because there are no grubs in the boxes. I just finished renewing the soil and replanting the daylilies. I bought a granular repellent at Ace Hardware. The guys they swear by it, so will see what happens.

About 2 yr ago we had a trapper come in with 3 traps. He caught 7 raccoons in 3 days. I'm guessing the whole family is having a great time in my garden!

Relocated animals usually die. They do not adapt to the new surroundings and will not live.

Never heard of that. On the program North Woods Law, the park rangers are always capturing and relocating animals, especially bears.

http://www.humanesociety.org/a...

http://audubonportland.org/wcc...

http://www.paws.org/wildlife/h...

http://wildcaresolutions.com/t... This article says that studies have shown relocated racoons die w/in 2 wks. They starve or are killed by predators. They do not know how to find food or water or shelter and are attacked by predators in unfamiliar surroundings.

I find it difficult to have a shred of compassion for opossums. Sorry. My daylily garden has cost me a bundle, and replanting them 3 times wasn't fun. All the critters were released on the mainland in the same location--a small park on the edge of the river. If they live, fine. They will go on to terrorize people over there. Now I just wait to see who comes into my garden now that the opossums are gone.