Marin Master Gardeners – Keeping Varmints at Bay pt 2 – Gophers, Rats, Squirrels, and Raccoons

Posted on 23 October 2025

Living at the edge of open space can present challenges to the home gardener. Do you look out the window and find your carefully cultivated fruits and vegetables are partially eaten? Or are your plants disappearing? It’s likely your garden is being appreciated by gophers, rats, squirrels, or raccoons. Marin Master Gardener Lois Stevens will provide information and discuss techniques to help home gardeners cope with these garden pests.

Lois Stevens has been a UC Marin Master Gardener since 2008 and been gardening for more than 50 years. She has chaired the Marin Master Gardener Help Desk service, been responsible for training new Master Gardeners, served on the Board of Directors, and makes presentations about the Master Gardener program and garden related topics at events such as this.

In her professional life, Lois was a Civil Engineer and Project Manager on highway and transportation engineering planning and design projects for 30 years. Her projects included in seismic retrofit and new Carquinez bridges, the new fourth bore of the Caldecott Tunnel; the new Transbay Transit Terminal in San Francisco; the Cypress Freeway Replacement; HOV lane projects in Marin, Sonoma Alameda and Contra Costa Counties; freeway interchange planning and design; improvements to State Route 4 in Contra Costa County; the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge; and the San Francisco Bay Bridge Toll Plaza.

In her personal life, she was raised in Michigan, where her grandmother and an uncle were instrumental in cultivating a love of plants and gardening in her young mind. She graduated from the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan and moved to California in 1980. She resides in Novato and has created a small, but lovely garden which is fire-smart and includes both ornamental and edible plants.