Dig This: Plant Choices That Can Help Reduce Gophers

If you’ve ever discovered fresh dirt mounds scattered across your lawn or noticed a healthy plant suddenly decline, you may have an unwelcome guest living just below the surface. Pocket gophers are a common challenge for homeowners throughout Brentwood, where fertile soils, irrigated landscapes, and nearby agricultural land create ideal conditions for these underground burrowers.

While gophers naturally help aerate soil, they can also damage lawns, gardens, irrigation systems, and the root systems of young trees and shrubs. Understanding why they’re here—and how thoughtful plant selection can help reduce damage—is one of the best ways to protect your landscape investment.

Why Gophers Love Brentwood

Brentwood offers nearly everything a gopher needs to thrive:

• Soft, workable soils make tunneling easy.
• Regular irrigation keeps the soil moist and encourages tender root growth.
• Parks, orchards, vineyards, and open spaces provide ideal habitats and pathways into residential neighborhoods.
• An abundance of lawns, gardens, and fruit trees provides a year-round food source.

Because much of their activity happens underground, homeowners often don’t realize there’s a problem until plants begin to fail.

Choosing Plants Gophers Tend to Avoid

Although no plant can guarantee a gopher-free yard, research and years of gardening experience have shown that gophers generally avoid certain plants because of their texture, fragrance, or naturally occurring compounds. Incorporating these into your landscape can help reduce the appeal of your garden while adding beauty and seasonal interest.

Consider including these plants:

• Lavender – Highly fragrant and drought-tolerant.
• Rosemary – An attractive evergreen herb with woody stems.
• Sage (Salvia) – Colorful, pollinator-friendly, and generally avoided by gophers.
• Oleander – A hardy screening shrub that gophers typically leave alone. ( All parts of the plant are toxic if ingested.)
• Society Garlic – Produces attractive purple flowers and has a strong scent.
• Daffodils (Narcissus) – Their bulbs contain compounds that most gophers avoid.
• Euphorbia is a drought-tolerant ornamental known for its milky sap and unpalatable foliage.
• Salvia Clevelandii (Cleveland Sage) is a fragrant, drought-tolerant California native whose intensely aromatic leaves also attract bees, butterflies, and other beneficial pollinators.
• Black & White Sage (Salvia mellifera) is a drought-tolerant California native with strong aromatic foliage and an extensive root system.
• California Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum) is a hardy California native with tough, woody stems and low-water needs. An excellent choice for drought-tolerant, pollinator-friendly landscapes.
• Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is a hardy, drought-tolerant perennial whose aromatic foliage is generally unappealing to gophers, while its long-lasting blooms attract butterflies and other beneficial pollinators.
• Mountain Marigold is a drought-tolerant perennial with aromatic foliage and bright yellow blooms.

Five Early Signs You May Have Gophers

Recognizing the warning signs:

• Fresh fan-shaped or crescent dirt mounds.
• Plants that suddenly wilt despite adequate watering.
• Soft or sunken areas in the lawn.
• Unexplained irrigation leaks or rising water bills.
• Young trees declining due to damaged root systems.

Gophers, Moles, or Ground Squirrels?

These animals are often mistaken for one another, but they cause different types of damage.

• Pocket gophers feed on roots and bulbs while living almost entirely underground.
• Moles primarily eat insects and earthworms and rarely damage plants directly.
• Ground squirrels live above ground in visible burrows and can damage gardens while creating hazards around foundations and walkways.

Correct identification is essential because each pest requires a different management approach.

Your Neighbor’s Gophers Can Become Your Problem

One of the biggest misconceptions is that gophers stay within a single yard. In reality, they don’t recognize property lines. As tunnel systems expand in search of food, gophers can easily move beneath fences into neighboring landscapes.

Homeowners can reduce the risk by:

• Inspecting their property regularly for fresh mounds.
• Protecting new trees with underground wire root baskets.
• Monitoring irrigation systems for leaks.
• Selecting plants that gophers are less likely to feed on.
• Communicating with neighbors when activity is discovered, since coordinated efforts are often more effective than treating one property at a time.

A beautiful landscape is one of the largest investments many homeowners make. By understanding Brentwood’s unique environment and making informed planting choices, you can create a landscape that’s both beautiful and better equipped to withstand one of our area’s most persistent underground visitors.