GROUNDHOG
Groundhogs are pests, but they have inspired a lot of fine writing. Michael Pollan, in his wonderful book Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education, includes a very funny section on futile strategies and stratagems for groundhog elimination. William Alexander, writer, gentleman farmer and author of The $64 Tomato, wrote “You may be smarter, but he’s got more time,” a chapter describing the extreme measures he took to get rid of the giant groundhog that he called “Superchuck”. I’m convinced that great poets of the past and present might have written a whole body of groundhog poetry had the poets opted to spend less time in their drafty garrets and more time in their gardens.
Groundhogs also get a lot of publicity every February, due to the lore that has grown up around Punxsutawney Phil, a celebrated Pennsylvania groundhog who predicts when spring will come by seeing his shadow–or not. Punxsutawney Phil probably has the most enviable job in the world; he is richly rewarded and lionized for simply waking up once a year. His handlers even save him the trouble of getting himself up and out of bed.
While not in Pollan’s or Alexander’s league, I too have written a lot about our resident suburban groundhog. I use the singular and the masculine as a convenience; we have actually had generations of males and females.
The groundhog or woodchuck is known to scientists as Marmota monax. It is sometimes called the land beaver or even the whistle pig. In my neighborhood and any other neighborhood in North America where people grow edible or ornamental plants it is known by a variety of names, most of which are unprintable.
Believe it or not the groundhog, a rodent, is related to the common squirrel, an animal that is just as voracious but a whole lot cuter. Groundhogs all look pretty much the same–up to two feet long from snout to tail with a thick grayish fur. Supposedly they top out at about nine pounds, but by October of every year, most of the mature groundhogs in my neighborhood would have to enroll in Weight Watchers® to get down to that level of slimness.
Groundhogs have three major qualities that make them problematic to farmers and gardeners: they tunnel, they eat and they reproduce. In my yard there are two tunnel entrances, both of which are wide enough to accommodate the fat fall groundhog as well as his slimmer spring self. One tunnel goes directly under my back fence, and the other goes under the side fence, giving the groundhog easy access to three yards full of tempting vegetation. I think that he spends the majority of his time in my yard because my plants are the most diverse and expensive.
Our neighborhood is full of groundhogs. Like their relatives everywhere they are difficult to discourage and impossible to get rid of. One neighbor caught “her groundhog” in a Havahart® trap and transported it elsewhere. By the time she got back from elsewhere, a new groundhog had moved in. Another neighbor is convinced that groundhog tunnels are undermining the stability of her garage. She might be right.
Being human and imagining that we can control the natural world, we all try to “groundhog-proof” our properties. The neighbor who worries about her garage sprays her vegetable plants with something that is supposedly distasteful to groundhogs. I have tried another folk remedy–pouring used cat litter into the tunnel entrances. This discourages the groundhog for about five days. My two cats, who limit their outdoor excursions to the fenced areas of the backyard, have had occasional stare-downs with our resident plant eater. These invariably end when one of the parties gets bored and turns his or her back on the other. I have also tried installing foxgloves, monkshood and other deadly or distasteful plants around the groundhog holes. The animals probably appreciate the flowers, but they are not fooled into eating the toxic plant parts.
My groundhog seems to favor clover, which grows abundantly in my lawn, and wild buttercups. I have a left a big patch of the latter conveniently near one of the tunnels. The groundhog, being fat and lazy, spends most of the time stuffing himself with clover and buttercups rather than anemones and campanulas. This fall I discovered that he also loves ornamental cabbage. I installed several in the back beds just before we opened the garden for a local garden tour. The big heads were lovely and I looked forward to seeing them persist right through the winter. Unfortunately the groundhog has polished off two cabbages already, and will undoubtedly finish off the third before the first hard frost. I hope all that cabbage gave him terrible gas.
My husband is always muttering about getting rid of the groundhog, preferably with a BB gun. I have forbidden this, because apart from any other considerations, he would be much more likely to hit one of the neighbors’ children than the groundhog. I have gotten tired of pouring used cat litter down the groundhog hole, and adopted a modified “live and let live” philosophy. At least we don’t have deer–yet.