A Garden Victory — Outwitting a Raccoon

Some people who grow roses have problems with fungal diseases, such as black spot. Others have problems with insects, such as thrips or spider mites. I have a problem with a raccoon.

Make that, "had" a problem. He has been relocated to lakefront property. I am happy that he can now take his anger management issues out on someone else's gardens.

Before explaining what brought us to a parting of the ways, let me say that if you think raccoons are cute little creatures you might want to think again. Getting him from the garden to the car in a Havahart trap involved much lunging, snapping of jaws with sharp teeth, growling and sounds I did not know a raccoon can make. Take it from someone who as a child was bitten by a confirmed rabid dog in saying you do not want to be bitten by a raccoon. I have no reason to believe this one is rabid, but once was enough. Why tempt fate?

Back to the raccoon .... Our conflict began with black oil sunflower seeds.

I like to attract birds to my garden, so I put out bird feeders in addition to seeking plants with flowers that will make nectar in the spring and seed in the fall. All my feeders are squirrel proof. I use a brand called Brome, and I have yet to see a squirrel get into one. They are not raccoon proof. At night I put the feeders where I keep my seed — in a galvanized steel trash can with a secure lid.

Except on the nights I forget to take the feeders down. And therein lies the problem. On those nights the raccoon shows up — and eats well.

Not wanting to spend money to feed the raccoon, I've gotten really good at putting the feeder up in recent months. The raccoon has gotten really angry. And vindictive.

With the arrival of warm weather and because we are hosting a music party that will involve the garden in late May, I've been doing a lot of sprucing up in the garden beds. That's when the problems with the raccoon began. Plants I would put in the ground during the day, he would dig up at night.

Dwarf mondo grass. Ferns. Heuchera. An azalea. Well, he couldn't get the latter out of the ground, but not for lack of trying. And he created a mess. He even tried to dig up a well established Don Juan climbing rose. Then, he disappeared for a month. I thought perhaps he had moved on. Or maybe an owl or coyote got him. Truthfully, I wouldn't have felt sorry for him. But, no such luck.

In his den, somewhere in the wooded ravine that is at the back of our property, he had been plotting. Drawing up a battle plan. And waiting for the right moment to launch a new attack.

That came the night after I planted a David Austin yellow rose, Vanessa Bell. I strategically located her near a path because she is fragrant. She arrived bare root — meaning no soil — with very long roots. I dug a hole through several layers of terra firma, settled in the roots and back-filled a beautiful blend of the earth I had removed mixed with several soil amendments and, rightly or wrongly (a blog for another day), buried the grafted bud union, as the David Austin folks said I should. I buried those roots deep. Real deep. I tamped down the soil. I sprinkled alfalfa pellets around her for extra nitrogen, watered her in and stepped back to admire my work and conjure up visions of fragrant yellow roses.

The next morning I went out to the garden to see how she had fared after her first night. I almost dropped my coffee mug. She was laying in the ground. Prostrate. Limp. Her beautiful roots dry as a bone. The hole I dug was again a hole. Dirt and soil amendments were spewed everywhere.

I got the message. I'M BBBAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCK.

I cursed. Loudly. I replanted Vanessa Bell (she is doing fine now) and then I got even. I went nuclear.

I drove to the hardware store and bought a Havahart raccoon trap. I wasn't much in the mood to Havahart, but I don't like the thought of killing things. Though, in this instance, the thought did occur.

I placed the trap, which, mind you, was not small, in a gazebo, baited it with bacon, and went to bed. I drifted off to sleep confident I would declare victory in the morning.

I should have known better.

Victory, I discovered at sunrise, does not come easily when engaging in a battle of wits with a raccoon. The bacon was gone. The trap door was firmly shut. And the cage was empty.

It took me a moment, but I figured out what had happened. He'd slipped a paw in from the side and pulled the bacon out through one of the wire rectangles, tripping the plate that slammed the exit door shut in the process.

I drew up Plan B.

That afternoon, I placed one side of the trap against the side of the gazebo, placed a squirrel live trap against the other side of the raccoon trap and a stack of bricks against the back of the trap. Then I placed the bacon under the raccoon trap trip plate. The only way he could get to the bacon was to go into the trap. That night as I turned off the lights in the house, I sent a silent message to my raccoon nemesis. Eat hearty tonight, pal!

The next morning? VICTORY WAS MINE!

He was in the trap. And he was not happy. I put on a thick pair of gloves to move the trap to the car. He couldn't get to me, but he tried.

I transported him to a nearby wooded area and with great care raised the exit door. A race horse never left a starting gate faster. He flew into the woods in a brown blur. He burst onto the edge of a clearing a few seconds later and hit another gear. "He took off like a scalded cat," said a man who watched the episode from a safe distance.

I have read since releasing him that raccoons can find their way home after being driven as far as 20 miles from where they were captured. I only drove him a little more than a mile to his new home.

Here's hoping we can have a lasting truce.