That seems to keep the varmint away for a long time.Ī White Light Emitting Diode (LED) lit Patio Cover: My remedy SMALL intrusions is to poke a hole into the tunnel with a screwdriver and introduce a few drops of coyote urine. Stainless steel is the ultimate, last forever material to use! If you’re in gopher country it’s important to plant in wire mesh baskets. Hole at very edge of the mesh caused either a gopher or mole. This is too small of a hole for the animal to get through. This photo shows an air hole they managed to open where the mesh meets the edge of the pond. They have also been able to travel under the mesh at the very edge. Patch of dead grass caused by gopher underneath. The result is a patch of dead grass a few inches in diameter. The damage they have been able to do it to either pull small areas of grass down through the mesh, or to chew the roots off from below. Gophers have been able to get under the mesh, but they have not been able to penetrate it or make those annoying mounds of dirt. So, how did it work out? The following photos were taken July 2008. Three to four inches deep might be a good trade-off allowing room for pipes above the mesh but leaving not enough soil above the mesh for gophers. They might be able to tunnel between the sod and the mesh. Moles seem to dig tunnels that are quite shallow. Then nip the mesh wires with a wire cutting “dikes” pliers.Ī: You could still have mole problems. Water the lawn well and the sod can be scraped off of the mesh using a square-nose spade. Q: How do you get into the soil later to repair sprinkler lines, etc.?Ī: There are always drawbacks to every problem’s solutions! Actually, it’s not too difficult. Them chew through small gauge bronze wire mesh. Q: What about those sonic vibrating battery powered gopher repellers?Ī: Gophers will be able to chew through that. Pushed flat against the soil while the sod gets rooted. Q: Is there a problem getting the mesh flat enough so it doesn’t lift the new sod?Ī: No, the new sod weighs about 5 lbs/sq-ft. They would just “climb over” the fence and dig down into the new lawn. Q: So why not just dig a trench around the lawn and bury a “fence” of wire mesh?Ī: Gophers have legs. At the end of the run, each about 70-feet log in my case, another pair of stakes held the end of the last strip of mesh down. I then joined the strips of mesh end to end using four tie-wraps per strip. I fastened the start of the first roll to the ground with two stakes. I started laying the mesh by unrolling the 3-foot by 10-foot strips, keeping them as flat as possible.

If it keeps my lawn from being ruined it’s well worth it. The 37-cents per square foot for the mesh was about the same price as the sod (Southland Marathon II). The longer 10-foot rolls cut installation time considerably. The local Home Depot and Lowes had the same mesh, but in smaller 3-foot by 5-foot rolls. I purchased 33 rolls of 3-foot by 10-foot material from a local OSH store for $11 per roll. I opted for the more expensive vinyl-coated hardware cloth as it looks like it will last for decades. I then spent a weekend covering the entire 950 square-feet with mesh. I had a landscaper first remove the old sod and re-grade the lawn. A new patio had been installed and re-grading was needed to correct an old drainage problem in the 950 square-foot lawn. October 2006 it was time to re-sod the 30-year-old yard. The vinyl coated mesh still looked brand new. Not surprisingly, the galvanized mesh showed some signs of corrosion, although it would have held up for many more years. After a two-and-a-half year test there were no apparent attempts by gophers to penetrate this area of the lawn while other areas were attacked.

These materials, known sometimes as “hardware cloth,” are made from wire around 19 or 20 gauge, with ½-inch square openings.

I covered half of the soil with 50 square feet of galvanized wire mesh and the other half with 50 square feet of vinyl coated wire mesh. I removed the sod from a 100 square foot area in front of my Koi pond, an area where I especially didn’t want gophers digging. In May 2004 I began an experiment to test the feasibility of a wire mesh barrier. After several frustrating years of battling the little buggers I’ve decided to adopt a more serious approach – a wire mesh barrier under the grass. Traps and poisons sometimes work but can’t be deployed until the damage has started. I just hate what they do to my lawn every year. Gopher Screen - How to keep moles and gophers from ruining your lawn Gopher Screen How to keep moles and gophers from ruining your lawn.

Stainless steel mesh screen home depot