I'm new to this. Is there anything I should do differently, or is this just what happens?

Context: I bought my house a year ago. I've had a 30'x30' section of my front yard smothered in wood chips for 2 months to kill the lawn, with plans to start planting native plugs either this fall or next spring. I noticed some plants in my backyard that *seemed* to be natives I was hoping to grow in the front yard (namely blue wood aster and wrinkleleaf goldenrod), so I decided why not, let's try to transplant some of them now and see what happens. I dug up and transplanted this, which I believe to be blue wood aster, yesterday evening. This morning I went out to see it had already been chomped down/broken. The goldenrod I transplanted on the opposite end of the wood chips is untouched.

I understand that native plants support native creatures, and I don't think this plant will die. But, is there anything I should do differently next time? A small fence around the area when I eventually plant all the plugs? There are more plants in my backyard I was thinking of transplanting to the front, but now I'm hesitant. There's nothing else planted in the front area right now besides a couple wild strawberries that are flourishing, and I have seen groundhogs going to town on goldenrods in my backyard, but this wood aster seemed fine back there until I moved it.

Also, if anyone wants to weigh in on whether this is in fact blue wood aster, I welcome it. My PlantNet app was not very confident in the ID and this is my first time seeing the plant so I'm not familiar with it. Last two photos are from before transplanting, if that helps ID.

Transplant quickly broken/eaten