Hello, I live near the Endowment lands in Vancouver and have spent the past four months wondering how to dissuade raccoons from visiting my garden. They became very interested in mid-September when I finished a landscaping project, including filling in an area to level it out, and adding a layer of sod--what I thought was a quick fix for a small lawn area. Almost every night the raccoons come, roll back the sod, and dig around, I presume for some sort of insect. While I do not care so much about the sod/lawn, I understand that the raccoons are probably dining on a Japanese beetle larvae; Burnaby has apparently been infested by this beetle, and the sod came from Burnaby. Once the larvae hatch, I have heard the beetle does significant damage to shrubs, plantings of all sorts. Does anyone have experience with how to combat these larvae? I heard something about nematodes being introduced into the ground in July to break the cycle of beetles reproducing. Where would I get these? Or are there other organic methods of ridding the soil of larvae, and thus, I hope, dissuading the raccoons from their nightly visits and destructive feasts? thanks for any advice you may have.
