Holes In The Lawn – What Animal Makes Them?

In autumn, garden owners may suddenly find holes in the lawn that appear more or less “overnight”. The suspicion is obvious that animals are at work here. But which cheeky badger could be on the loose?

It might actually be an animal digging the holes in the lawn. It could be a hedgehog, but also a marten or even a raccoon (they feel quite at home here in the meantime). Surely the animal is looking for grubs and other beetle larvae, which are now still relatively close under the surface. In colder weather the larvae move back into deeper soil layers. By then, at the latest, the boreholes have also disappeared. Mice are also often suspected, but are not actually hunting for larvae. In our own garden, we found holes in the lawn when voles were particularly abundant.

What to do about it?

You could, to prevent further holes, set up a trap. There are live traps on the market that are baited. But if you caught such an animal, what then? Relocate it to the forest? Besides, such a hedgehog (we guess rather hedgehog than any other animal) eats lots of pests. Slugs, larvae and many other insects that would otherwise gnaw your plants are on the hedgehog’s menu.

We suggest: Just wait for colder weather, the feeding damage is guaranteed to stop. Instead, support your friendly insect and pest exterminator by offering him a winter home. You can pile up fallen leaves and dry branches in a sheltered corner. Surely the hedgehog will eat another layer of fat and then sleep peacefully in the offered quarters until spring.

And what about the holes?

You can level the holes in the lawn in spring and reseed them as soon as the temperatures go up a bit. There’s special grass seed for such repair jobs. As always on the subject, buy slightly more expensive branded stuff rather than the mixes that are sometimes available at the supermarket. And follow the instructions on the package. Then the holes are quickly forgotten.