NOT WHAT WE WANTED TO SEE......

I am so sorry to hear what has happened in your garden Dorrydaisy2, you have badger problems, I have muntjac problems, I have wire mesh as high as 5 feet along the fence still one manage to get in, I thought the war was won by me, only to go out yesterday and found 3 of my tulips eaten and a rose snapped and thrown on the ground, I just cannot make out yet where it is coming from :(((( All the best, take courage, we will get through this.

and I thought I had problems, mine are just little bunnies - I know they do a lot of damage but nothing quite as bad as this. Hope it is soon fixed and that you can repair things for your open day, best wishes - B (Oliveoil)

So sorry to hear about this, DD2, after all your (and OH's) hard work. It's the cost as well as the actual destruction. I think I would have cried! Do you have a Badger Group in your area who might advise about this problem? Hope you can get it sorted.

Oh no ! So sorry DD. I do sympathise with you both. Hope you can get it sorted before your open day

thats a real shame, im just wondering if badgers would be frightened off by a noise? could you have something in the garden that rattled or perhaps a loud bell on a trip wire??

You poor things after all your hard work and that border looked beautiful Dd. after installing that fence. What to do, try, and you need hubby to help, sprinkle male urine around the area and see if that helps, i am not joking, we did this because we were overrun with foxes last year, five of them ransacked our garden night after night so we resorted to the wee. method and it did the trick, yo have to do it daily for a week or so! Give it a try!

I heard that works Grandmage and I was also told human hair is a deterrent. I am going to ask my local hairdresser if I can have a bag full of clippings and give it a try. I have also put breeze blocks all along the bottom of the fence to make life difficult for them.

things close to home are always worse than things far away, and actually AT home is even worse!

Would a metal mesh be any use as a detereent? I'd probably have to be dug into the ground, to stop them getting under, but would it provide enough of a barrier?

You can't stop very determined burlgars, but you can make it as hard for them as possible; then they might give up and try somewhere else. And once they get into the habit of leaving you alone ...

Dotty I can understand how upsetting that would be on any occasion but with an open day booked it makes it so much harder, I hope you get it sorted out and mainly that you find a barrier to stop it happening again...

so sorry Dotty about the naughty badgers, you have both worked so very hard to transform that area as well as your lovely garden year round jobs, i really dont know what the answer is or how to keep them out, i hope you manage to keep things nice for your next opening x

Very sorry to hear of this DDaisy :(( really not fair for you

thats a shame dd. I know spritz had a similar proble last year. she wrote a few blogs of the things she did to keep them out. in the end i think it was electrified fencing!

Angela I'm so sorry ,I know how hard you and your husband have worked on this new fence and planting, have the Badgers always been in your area or is it something new ? I wonder if there's some kind of scent /smell you can spray the fence and area with to stop it coming that way , it's so much worse knowing you open your delightful garden to visitors ..
We have chased Muntjacs and rabbits out and have to have wire fencing buried under the ground to stop them digging underneath ... I hope you can find a solution soonest .......

That is a real shame - I feel for you. I would be absolutely raging mad!
I do hope you manage to find a solution to your problem before much more damage is done.

Ginellie, I also have heard of the human hair method too, I would try both, anything once to try to deter the little B's.

Oh I'm sorry to see this damage :o( After all your hard work it must be so disheartning. I hope you can find a way to deter the culprits.
Good luck with your open day.

Oh my goodness....they certainly are determined to have access to your garden aren't they? Little b*****s! I would be purple in the face!! I'm sure that by now you will have it all back to pristine again DD. What can you do? I'm at a loss.....pyracanthus hedge on the other side..if that's your ground...oh dear. However, I'm sure your open day will go really well again this year and this will all be a distant memory by then...is it soon?

Thank you all for your helpful suggestions, some we have already tried , hair, urine (not us, the neighbour, but it did not work, just made the garden smell like a urinal!!
Karen we do have a pyracantha in part of the garden, but plants wont keep a badger out, only concrete!!
We open in June and July so let us hope by then things will have improved.....
Amy next year we will have to put in a new fence that is badger proof on the other side (where they are getting in) too late to start it now as it will be a very big job.....sigh!!
At the moment I have hung some very noisy wind chimes along the most vulnerable area, we also have our daughters very large dog staying with us for 3 weeks, she sleeps in the porch where she can view the garden, so hopefully would hear the bu.....
I will keep you all posted, trying hard not to get too worked up about it.

Glad to hear that you have a solution in mind, even if it will have to wait until after the opening. :)

Is there No way you can block that small void at the back of the fence, at least until the time of your open garden is finished Dotty?. Could you run an electric fence in that void perhaps. It must take a huge amount of physical and mental effort to show your garden to the public. I can empathise because, more than once, my garden has been trashed by fox families, in May of all months. Our neighbour has put wire mesh to protect a void at the back of his garden shed from fox access. All folded into the void and blocking the ends up to 7 feet high.....no more foxes seen since he did this.

dog poop works here !! touch wood no probs for a while ......... and yes the urine works too , not very nice but!!!! , as we have hens ................. gud luk d.d , hope its sorted soon xxx hugs

Dorjac it is on the other side of the garden that they are coming in, where we have loads of plants, so no way can we put up electric fencing, the hole you see is where they are trying to get out.........the foxes are a pain also, they share the badgers sett!! so between them, we are up against it.
Cristina that is not the way I want to go, pooh and urine, not nice for visitors coming round your garden lol

lol d.d noooooooooo , but u chuck it on the other side of the fence if u can , u dont smell it ....... but the animals do !!! or chuck down there den .............. see how they like that . haha , you have to keep smileing dont you xx

Good job my neighbour cannot see this as the badger is coming under the fence from her side of the garden, but the fence is ours, so chucking pooh anywhere is out of the question.....lol

haha ................. lol . does she have a dog !!! tell her to get one lol xx

I promise you that the urine doesnt smell, we have had to resort (well hubby has!) to pouring it all around our garden and over our deck and have never had a problem with smell, but it sure does do the trick by stopping the bloomin foxes from pooing everywhere!

agree madge lol ................. it does x how ur plants setterling in !!

Crissie, they are looking good now and starting to grow I'm glad to say, cant wait for them to flower now! Its been too cold to do much, hoping for some nice warmth soon.

my big fushis is budding up now glad to say ........... lol and my baby one not grown much as yet , its bin lovely here but cold at nite ................ fingers x for more sun , bin out loads in garden x

You are braver than me then!! My little fuschia looks healthy but has not grown yet! and the campion looks good too. x

thats great hun .............. sun and cold here brrrrrrrr lol
seems we taken over d.d blog , sorry !! d.d