How to Repair Landscape Damage From Gophers

Remove gopher mounds -- the lopsided piles of dirt that gophers push up at the entrance and exit points of their tunnels -- promptly. Fill in the hole, tamping the dirt firmly as deep as it will go into the adjoining tunnel. Smooth out the area and replant grass or cover it with a thick layer of mulch to prevent weed seeds from germinating in the loose, bare earth.

Compress the tunnels gophers create in your lawn and garden beds to prevent soil erosion when water from rain or your sprinkler system flows through the underground tunnel networks that gophers produce. Push down the raised soil by stomping on it repeatedly or tamping it down with a heavy lawn roller. Fill the resulting depressions with topsoil. Reseed the areas if they're in the lawn or cover them with mulch.

Turn over the soil and replant sections of the vegetable garden and flower beds where gophers have pulled the plants right down into their tunnels as they burrowed down the row. If it's late in the growing season, instead of planting again, reconfigure small beds by lining their bottoms and sides with wire mesh to exclude gophers in the coming seasons.

Replace girdled fruit trees -- ones that gophers have damaged by chewing off the bark all the way around the trunk. If the tree has a trunk more than 2 inches around and is only partially girdled, you may attempt to save it with a bridge graft. Be sure to conduct any bridge grafting in the spring. It requires specific expertise, so call in a tree professional if you are inexperienced.

Cut back the branches of deciduous shrubs that gophers have damaged by gnawing. Spread a layer of compost around the shrubs, mulch and water frequently as the shrub recovers and sends up new shoots.

Repair pipe leaks in the sprinkler system where gophers have chewed in an attempt to reach water underground. Dig the soil out from around the leak, cut and remove the damaged section and replace it with new pipe and couplings. After testing the system to ensure that the repair is solid, refill the area with topsoil and reseed or cover with mulch.