Wild boars ate my lawn, sort of
Our local wild boars (cinghiale) popped round recently for a bit of a party on my lawn
10/6/20253 min read
Wild boars, or cinghiali as they are known in Italian, are fascinating creatures that seem to have developed quite an interest in the grassy areas around the house.
One thing that I have learned over the years of being in an area that is heavily populated by wild animals is how smart they are.
Its like having your very own four legged stalker. If we go away for the weekend then the deer are at the house straight away, chewing up my trees. It feels quite personal as well, after so many incidents of deer damaging trees I started planting the same varieties that grow locally. It didn't make any difference, I have the same beech, maple, hawthorn, wild cherry and wild plum that grow in the woods. But they still prefer mine, they must have to walk past hundreds of exactly the same trees to come up to my place and chew mine instead.
This time it was the cinghiale (wild boar) that decided to really go for it. And its not the first time, We have been cultivating lawns around the houses for some time now, not really because I like lawns but because it was the easiest way to maintain the spaces while I was concentrating on building the houses.
I am not a massive fan of lawns, the pictures here are of our old garden in London, not a blade of grass in anywhere. And this is how I see the garden looking at La Rupina. The issue is our London garden is a tiny fraction of the one in Italy, doing something like this is going to be a big job. So for now it was going to be lawns.
The first time the boar dug up our garden was three years ago, when they dug up the upper and lower lawns, that was quite a mess. The next year was the same are but not as bad so we managed to tidy that up quite quickly.
This year they really made a good job of it. So they started with the banks of the terracing in early August, I have to say they did a very neat job, carefully following the line of the top and bottom of the bank they systematically dug up the entire area for the whole length of one bank. No more no less and they missed nothing. These banks are large, about 3m high and about 100m long, this is a serious amount of work, and probably done overnight.
Then in October we were away and I got a video from our neighbour showing us the damage done by their latest visit. I think they noticed the car was gone and thought yeh lets go and dig it over. Give him a nice surprise for when he comes back.
So why do they like my lawns so much that they come round each year and dig them over like this. The thing about cinghiale is they are very focused and clever. They dont do anything unless there is a good reason for it.
First there is the obvious, short grass is easier to dig up and turn over than high grass because taller plants have deeper roots. But it turns out ther is another more important reason, we have a sit on mower and we recycle the grass cuttings by mulching them back into the lawn. This adds a lot of nutrients back into the grass which in turn feeds a lot more bugs.
Our lawns are not monoculture grass, ours are made up of the wild plants that were there before, just shorter, this creates a very diverse environment which supports a wide range of insects.
We also cut our grass much longer than most lawns as I like to encourage the bugs and I only cut it just short enough to make it neat and tidy for our guests, at around 50-75mm..
So it turns out our lawns have enough bugs for a nights feed and thats what has been bringing the boar.
Well they had better enjoy it while it lasts, the building work is coming to an end and when it does the wild boar are not the only ones that are going to be digging up the grass.
