You could try lightly mulching around the base of your roses with a strongly aromatic plant like lemon balm. I’ve been having excellent success keeping raccoons out of my compost using this method. Repeat every week or as needed to keep the scent fresh!

Yeah! We sometimes call this ecological tracking because it uses understanding of ecology to dramatically speed up the tracking process and sometimes even bypass the need to find footprints.

Of course Diana, the bigger question is why are you afraid of Raccoons? Haha, thanks for sharing!

I never thought of the angle that looking at the easiest and closest food sources is a way to track raccoons. They definitely go for the low-hanging fruit!

I will use the food/habitat link to avoid these guys – good to keep in mind on walks where I’ve seen their mini hand prints.