2009's most menacing or troublesome pest for you

My own dog. Every time he sees a squirrel he has to try to catch it and it doesn't matter what gets in his way or breaks under his steps. Grrrrr.

I said slugs earlier but here's another that I detest, earwigs!

Agreed! Slugs are so slow and earwigs so fast and yet so sneaky. Both are so destructive.

I found my cat resting on a half filled coleus cuttings tray.
Nothing wa hurt but it explains why a few of the cells were packed down

Deer. You all know why.

I think he walks across the tray to get to the dresser,must think its a garden.

Normally, I would say it is the voles, but not this year. I have to agree with most of you that the slugs and earwigs were really bad. They started eating very early this year and nothing seemed to slow them down.

In the MidAtlantic, Japanese Beetles were almost non existant this year, which is very strange. The Cicadas and June Bugs were very light this year too. But the locusts were unbelievably noisy, more than I can ever remember. Some days I had to go inside, they gave me such a headache and you could still hear them in the closed air conditioned house.

UGG

Japenese Beetle's.....errrr I hate these horrible, horrible little ugly good for nothing bugs.
They destroy everything in sight...especially my roses! Seems like nothing works on them or it works for awhile and they get used to it.

Jane

I have problems with with mice and chipmunks. They ate all my strawberries, got a few potatoes, dug up and ate all my siberica bulbs. I found some of their holes and put poison down them. I'm sure they had a thousand babies before I killed a couple.

Rabbits here. They are chewing the leaves of my Japanese and siberian irises down to about two inches. In the spring I'm going to spray the iris leaves with hot pepper spray, and if that doesn't work I'm going with the water spraying scarecrow. I really don't want to hurt the little guys, but the irises need their leaves for food.

I hate it when the bunnies chew your Asiatic & Oriental lillies off at ground level and then leave the giant lily stalk laying on the ground with all of it's lovely buds intact.

Yes.

But aren't they such cute little guys?

Yes, they are. For some reason, I had an inordinate amount of them this year. But I really didn't have too much damage from them, at least not that I noticed. They were in the beds every day, whenever I walked through, they'd go running. They were smaller bunnies than normal. Here, one of them confused my Bergenia with a cabbage! Guess they do look a lot alike

We have a cat that keeps the rabbit population down to a minimum.
Something was eatinh JI new plants, I sprinkled cayenne pepper around each plant, it worked.

A vole got 9 JI stalks, nipped right at ground level. A neighborhood cat got the vole.

There is justice!

My bunnies love crocus. They don't bother anything else so I'm ok with the crocus loss. Chipmunks, and I have LOTS, don't bother anything except the birdfeeders. I find the chipmunks very entertaining and had a nice display of sunflowers one year due to their efforts.

I love a freebie

Me, too! None of the birds or critters ever gave me my most troublesome weeds - I did those all by myself!

The birds gave me cosmos one year and a gorgeous white bleeding heart (right under the huge pine tree in front - wonder how that happened? Ha).

My neighbor with the raised bed of Black Raspberries is my worst weed menace.
Thank gawd I am on the otherside from the westerlies that blow thru here.
This is my garden with the raspberry weed bed beyond on the top left

We had blackberries for 16 years until I ripped them all out two years ago. They would lay down branches in the asparagus patch and root in there. They'd do it everywhere they could. Too much trouble though the blackberries were very good.

The bunnies sometimes eat the crocus foliage but not the crocus flowers and while I always believed if they stripped the foliage the crocuses wouldn't bloom again it doesn't happen that way here. Maybe they gather enough energy before the bunnies find them.

Pirl, And I thought that it was the voles. Maybe those crocus will come back next year!

Sometimes they do

According to only my own observations -

Voles eat at the base of the foliage but bunnies eat a crocus leaf from the end of the foliage down to the base. Voles are nasty enough to leave the leaf behind, which makes them that much more despicable!

Pirl, I don't remember seeing any crocus foliage on the ground. I was surprised to see some holes in my newly planted crocus border as I planted them in a hugh long trench laid with Permatil. So, I'm hoping that it was just the bunnies eating the foliage. That never occurred to me.

Some years, a groundhog will come by and eat all of my tulips off at the neck and leave lots of very erect topless stems!! I'd much rather he eat the stem too.

I agree. Topless tulips are definitely in bad taste!

The deer always got the tops of my tulips but this year I was strongly determined to win their game and protected them with mesh netting all around them. I won!

For the bunnies you can try cayenne pepper, blood meal (but not if you have digging dogs), chili powder, crushed red peppers, etc. I grow cayenne peppers just to spread for the cute little bunnies (drats!).

Pirl, I know you have a large garden. How many canisters of the pepper do you buy? It wouldn't seem like you'd get enough yield from fresh peppers to cover much ground. Doesn't it have to be reapplied after a rain? My first year here, I tried pepper & moth balls to keep the squirrels away. It didn't work at all.

Something that I did last year, really scared the heck out of them. There have hardlly been any here this year at all. I'm not sure if it was the snake-a-way or the vole poison. Two squirrels ate the poison and died. I stopped using the poison, because I was finding dead animals other than voles.

I buy them at a big box store so it's not expensive and I can use the Blood Meal along with the peppers if the hawk doesn't control the bunny population. I grow the cayenne's for my own pleasure and give the bunnies leftovers! If the peppers are not finely ground they are still effective, even after many rains, for any critter that ever puts its paws to its mouth. The bunnies here eat the lily leaves but the deer eat the buds - the dynamic duo for sure!

I also only protect the plants the bunnies eat and not others.

I have seen squirrls eat tulip buds

Ge, I've seen squirrels dig bulbs up and toss them about the beds. I've never seen them eat them. Another DGer told me that they sprinkle Triple Super Phosphate around freshly planted bulbs to keep the squirrels from digging.

Pirl, I used to mix bloodmeal in my planting dirt, mostly hoping to keep the voles at bay. Then, a neighborhood Rotweiler started jumping his fence and visiting my garden and I was afraid that he would start digging in my beds.

I keep my handtools, fertilizers and soil amendments in one of those big Rubbermaid deck boxes on my bottom patio near my potting bench. One day I came home from work and found the box lid open. There were a bunch of items on the ground. Among the debris were the completely chewed remains of two full bags of bonemeal. He ate every bit of the bonemeal and good portions of the bags!!

Which creature ate the bone meal?

Is he a friendly dog? We used to have a neigboring Doberman that would run up on our deck and try to get in things. She ran so fast it was kind of scary, but she was a good dog. Someone said she once took a steak off their grill.

Maybe the Rottie is helping to keep the critters at bay. All Casey (one of my dogs) has to do is poke her head out the door and the squirrels are like lightening getting out of the yard. It's pretty comical to watch, especially when they lose their footing along the fence.

I don't know if he's friendly or not. When I'm outside, he sits at the edge of my garden, on the neighbor's property as if he knows where the boundaries are. He won't cross over the beds to my yard if I'm out there. He'll sit there and bark at me. I wouldn't pet him as I often see the owner beating him for jumping the fence and not coming when called. I wouldn't approach or pet any dog that has been beaten, especially a dog as strong as a Rottweiler. It's a shame, the dog needs a new owner.

Then I read that the smell of Milorganite will keep the Critters away. So I starting mixing that in my planting dirt. It does not deter voles, so I'm not sure who it bothers. Maybe it's what chased the squirrels away. Last fall, I sprinkled it all throughout the beds along with some minerals before I dressed them for winter.

I am back.
Northern Seasons..sorry I didn't check back re: Jap Beetles. I just picked them off by hand this year. Over the last several seasons I have put out the phernome lure and emptied the traps (4) out 1-2 a day. This is generally not recommended as it brings them in, but I did kill tens of thousands (or several gallons) in a season. This season I didn't due it. Medical stuff prevented me from being able to do the overseeing necessary; plus they didn't become a major problem until late in the season. I think that heavy trapping for several seasons, using the nematode spray one season and the city Finally cut back some of the weeds and wild grape vines that provided such a banquet across the road from my garden.
Currently the major problem is moles. Folks on on one side had folks in to spray poison (maybe for the insects in the ground or ??)..the fellow didn't know what he was spraying but said that he was sure it was safe (we have 3 small dogs)
Anyway..their lawn is flat and ours is laced with tunnels. Usually I try to live trap and put them in the wild, but am not quick enough etc to try it anymore. I would just skip the issue, but that yard is now hazardous; both to my azalea (which cannot be replaced should they continue to burrow under the roots-it has been rescued from wilting a few times already) and to my ankles etc. The tunnels are now about 8" deep and I am concerned about falling. Have called the fellow that relocated some raccoons a few years ago. He will try to help, but said they may be too deep to deal with;. May have to take my chair, shovels, bucket and cane and sit awhile!!

Marcia, I don't have moles anymore, but many people who do swear by this trap.

http://www.farmhardware.com/SuperStore/SuperStore-Product.asp?ProductID=5451


When I had them, I used to have to put the dirt back under the Rhodos and Azaleas every day!!

Thanks, I will look for it. Major concern was that if I used poison (which I really didn't want to do) that it might end up in possession of a pet.

This has been a very interesting thread to read and has made me very thankful I'm not facing the pests some of you have. My biggest problem wasn't mentioned so I thought I'd see if anyone has good solutions. Grasshoppers! We get them by the bucketfuls...every size, color and description they can come in. By August everything I have looks so ragged, although nothing is totally killed. We live in the country and have brome on two side, so that probably contributes, but I can't get rid of it. We have chickens who really love them, but if the chickens are out they do as much damage to the flowers and veggies as the hoppers. The chicken run does border two sides of my vegetable garden, so that helps the veggies, but there are years that I have no oriental lilies or surprise lilies at all as they're eaten as the blooms emerge. My fall roses bloom on almost leafless branches and every iris leaf looks like it's been cut with pinking shears. I'd love to find a solution for these crazy bugs if anyone else has ever taken them on sucessfully.

Willow