Underground Fencing to Control Gophers or Moles

If previously healthy garden plants suddenly wilt and turn brown, the cause may not be a disease. The cause could be underground. Gophers, moles and other subterranean rodents can wreak havoc when they move into a landscape. The burrowing critters can be the single biggest challenge to gardeners in areas where the rodents' populations are high. Wire-mesh cages – a type of underground fencing for rodents – are effective against the rodents, but using them takes some serious effort and know-how.

Gophers eat plant roots and even pull entire plants underground to consume their foliage, warns Oklahoma State University Extension. Larger shrubs and trees may not die immediately but begin a slow decline after a gopher starts chewing on their roots. Moles don't typically eat roots, but their tunneling activities can cause a lot of damage to the root systems of plants in mole-infested areas.

The tunnels of gophers and moles can drain irrigation water, keeping it from the plants for which it was intended. Moles are the size of a small mouse, but gophers are about the size of a squirrel. Both moles and gophers leave mounds of soil wherever they tunnel.

Underground fencing is an alternative to poisoning or trapping ground-dwelling rodents. Wire mesh used to bar gophers and moles should be made of galvanized metal so it does not rust quickly and disintegrate; its holes should be no more than 3/4 inch wide, says the University of California Integrated Pest Management Online. The holes of chicken wire are a bit too big, allowing the critters, especially moles, to squeeze through them. Some wire-mesh products marketed specifically for use against gophers and moles meet those criteria, but hardware cloth also can be used.

All sides of a lawn and a garden bed need to be lined with a wire mesh gopher fence to exclude gophers and moles. Lining areas with the wire mesh is a very labor-intensive process. Soil must be removed to a minimum depth of 6 to 8 inches for the wire mesh to be installed. Rolls of wire mesh are unrolled across the length of the installation area, and they are placed in rows that overlap by at least 4 inches.

The rows must be knit together with pieces of galvanized wire to prevent the rodents from pushing through two adjacent pieces. After the wire mesh is in place, the soil can be put back, but the wire mesh needs to be left long enough to extend 6 inches above the soil line on all sides of the area it surrounds. Otherwise, the animals can enter the fenced area from ground level and make a home inside that area.

Lining an entire area with a wire mesh gopher fence is the only effective approach to protecting a lawn, vegetable garden or flowerbed. It is easier, however, to cage the roots of a shrub, vine or tree you want to protect in a basket. Prefabricated gopher baskets can be purchased or made by folding wire mesh into the shape of baskets.

Each basket's wire mesh pieces should be knit together with galvanized wire to prevent animals from pushing through the locations where the pieces overlap. A plant's roots grow outward and through a wire-mesh basket's holes over time, but the plant's core root ball is preserved in the basket, ensuring its survival when the area is under attack by underground rodents.