About the Landscape Juice Network

Founded in 2008. The Landscape Juice Network (LJN) is the largest and fastest growing professional landscaping and horticultural association in the United Kingdom.

LJN's professional business forum is unrivalled and open to anyone within within the UK landscape industry

LJN's Business Objectives Group (BOG) is for any Pro serious about building their business.

For the researching visitor there's a wealth of landscaping ideas, garden design ideas, lawn advice tips and advice about garden maintenance.

PRO

Animals pulling up turfs

I recently laid a small 30sqm section of turf for a client only for several of the turfs to be pulled up by animals over night. Foxes or fiox cubs the most likely culprit based on the area. Badgers not really seen in the area. Muntjacs are seen, but no signs of prints in the soil.

The area had been prepared six weeks prior with no signs of animal distrubance, and there was no sign of foraging under the turfs so my assumption is animals "playing".

Reset the turfs and covered the area in hessian I usually use for protecting seeded area. Also piled up left over off cuts of turf nearby as a distraction. This worked for the most part, though the hessian did get pulled up and has had to be reset a few times.

Never had this happen before so looking for advice on how others combat this problem. This was admitedly the first time I've used Rolawn turf, which was very light weight in comparrison to other heavy sod turfs I've used previously, which I think fox cubs would struggle to pull up.

Thanks, Jason

You need to be a member of Landscape Juice Network to add comments!

Join Landscape Juice Network

Votes: 0
Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • We experienced a similar issue on freshly laid 1400 sqmts, nightmare! Also at this time of year, in our case it was magpies and crows, tried various types of bird scarers with minimal effect and had to redo around 250 sqmts fortunately customer paid. Suspect it is birds as our site has a fox and badger population. Guess the birds are after grubs and we saw the birds pulling the turf rolls back, eventually the problem stopped presumably after the food source was gone.

  • PRO

    It will most likely be birds, thinking there are cockchafers or leather jackets under the turf, I have used fishing line with hazard tape fixed to to deter them, for the most part it worked but there are some stubborn buggers out there that it just will not stop.

  • If it was playing activity, I would suspect foxes.  We've seen them cause havoc, particularly with leakypipe irrigation which they love to pull out and chew.  I would have expected there to be disturbance before turfing if it was something after grubs.  Did you use a pre-turf fertilizer, and could it have had bonemeal in it?

This reply was deleted.

Trade green waste centres

<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) --> <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-WQ68WVXQ8K"></script> <script> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'G-WQ68WVXQ8K'); </script>

LJN Sponsor

Advertising

PRO Supplier

Agrovista Amenity has played a pivotal role in one of the UK's most sustainable highway planting projects, by supplying biodegradable alternatives for a large-scale landscaping effort led by Leicester City Council. The project, commissioned by…

Read more…
PRO Supplier

Roehampton Club, a prestigious multi-sports and social club in southwest London, has embraced sustainable practices with the introduction of two Dennis ES-860 battery-powered mowers.

Head Groundsman Simon Bailey and the grounds team have…

Read more…
PRO Supplier

Cutting Edge Grounds Maintenance, a leading provider of grounds maintenance services, has selected MM40 from Mansfield Sand as its preferred choice of sand for sports pitch maintenance.

Established by industry expert Joshua Blackburn in…

Read more…
PRO Supplier

Ramsey Golf and Bowls Club in Cambridge, is experiencing remarkable improvements in turf health and playability thanks to the SISIS Maxislit.

Head Greenkeeper Richard Shilling, who has dedicated 35 years to the club, highlights how this…

Read more…