Dealing With Gopher And Field Mouse Damage In Your Lawn: What It Looks Like And How To Fix It
Sometimes the most annoying things about landscaping are the problems caused by wildlife. For example, field mice tunnel above and below ground, leaving lots of unsightly trails in your lawn above ground and ankle-breaking ridges in the soil from underneath. Gophers are just as bad, if not worse, because their holes cause people to trip and fall, and gophers dig a lot of holes so that they have multiple "back doors" from their underground burrows. The following details provide a closer look at the damage these two pests create in your lawn and how to fix it.
How to Recognize a Field Mouse Problem
If you live in a part of the country that gets snow, field mice will definitely make their presence known. They come up out of the frozen ground in winter to tunnel through the dead grass and snow. When the snow melts in spring, you can see this massive, zig-zag path of mud and dead grass tunnels all over your yard.
If you live where it is warmer all year round, look for flattened and tunneled areas of grass. Field mice also tunnel just under the surface of the soil, leaving ridges everywhere that can be felt when you walk on your lawn and sometimes even cause you to trip when the ridges converge and leave large, lumpy areas in the yard.
Recognizing the Gopher Problem
With gophers, you not only have the tunneling, ridge, and lumpy yard problem but also holes through which the gophers escape. The network of underground tunnels and surface holes are to the gopher's advantage because predators are often too preoccupied with the gopher hole they saw the gopher pop into or out of to realize that the gopher just escaped into another hole a few feet away. Unfortunately, these holes often cause broken, twisted, or sprained ankles, making your yard a land mine to walk through.
How to Fix It
First and foremost, you need a landscaping expert to eliminate the mice and gophers. Once they have been eliminated, a landscaper can come to your property, dig and overturn all of the areas where the mice and gophers created these lawn issues, and then fill the yard with more dirt and topsoil before putting down some lovely green sod. To keep it nice, you may need regular visits. For more information, contact a landscaping company such as Oliver's Landscaping & Garden Service, LLC.