Gopher Eating Plants: How to Identify and Stop Underground Root Damage

Gophers eat plants from underground — targeting roots, bulbs, and tubers while the above-ground portion appears healthy until damage is severe. If your plants are wilting or dying despite normal watering, with intact stems and green leaves, gophers have likely eaten the root system from below.

How Gophers Eat Plants

Pocket gophers feed on plants by eating their underground root systems as they tunnel. The gopher does not need to surface to damage your plants — it pulls roots and underground plant parts directly into its tunnel system during normal foraging activity.

The pattern of damage is distinctive: plants affected by gopher feeding die suddenly without obvious above-ground cause. Adjacent healthy plants may be unaffected while targeted plants collapse. The root zone of affected plants, if excavated, shows chewed or missing roots rather than rot or disease.

Which Plants Do Gophers Target Most?

In Southern California, gophers most frequently damage:

Lawn grasses — a constant food source. Bare dead patches in otherwise healthy lawn often indicate gopher root feeding below.

Root vegetables — carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, radishes, and potatoes in vegetable gardens

Flowering bulbs — tulips, dahlias, irises, and most spring bulbs (daffodils and narcissus are exceptions — they are toxic to gophers)

Ornamental shrubs — especially newly planted shrubs with young, tender roots

Young fruit trees — gophers can girdle the root collar of young trees, killing them within weeks

Ground covers — ice plant, gazania, and other common SoCal ground covers with fleshy roots

Gopher Plant Damage vs Disease and Drought

Gopher root damage is sometimes confused with overwatering, underwatering, or root disease. Key distinguishing features of gopher damage:

Sudden wilting of previously healthy plants

Multiple plants in a line or cluster affected (following the tunnel path)

Intact stems and green leaves on wilting plants (disease usually shows foliage symptoms)

Fresh gopher mounds visible nearby

Plants that can be easily pulled from the ground — the root system is largely gone

How to Protect Plants from Gophers

Short-term: Plant gopher baskets around high-value plants at planting time. Use hardware cloth lined raised beds for vegetable gardens.

Long-term: Eliminate the gopher. Professional trapping and carbon monoxide treatment are the only methods that reliably protect all plants on the property — not just individually protected specimens.

Call 909-599-4711 for gopher control with a 60-day guarantee.

Gopher Proof Your Garden | What Gophers Eat | Gopher Damage Guide