Don't. If he is tunneling, then he is disturbing the soil around the roots of the roses and without contact to the soil, the plants will die. You need to get it out of the bed.

Trapping moles is the only way to get rid of them; but all trapping is illegal in WA state. It is not illegal to sell the traps; just to use them! But I doubt that the mole police are going to throw you in jail if you do trap a mole. (I won't tell) Personally I just leave my moles alone and fill the holes and tunnels when I see them. They haven't done any harm to my roses--yet.

Last year I sprayed my roses and soil with imidacloprid for rose midge and I noticed that the moles moved out of my rose beds. Probably because there was no food for them. Imidacloprid kills the critters in the soil especially earthworms. I'm not recommending that you use it against moles. I try to avoid using insecticides but midge was wiping out all my roses, I had no choice if I wanted any blooms and getting rid of moles was a beneficial side effect. But the moles just move on, now they will probably come up in my lawn.

For those who might wonder if we have lost our minds in WA state the history is this-- a few years back an anti-trapping initiative was passed. It was aimed at the practice of trapping bears and cougars mostly. It was seen as cruel since these animals suffered and took days to die in the traps. The initiative appealed to the emotions but was poorly worded (as they often are) and had the effect of banning all traps. The legislature promised to fix the law but they haven't yet.

You will not like him. Ever. I am a kind-hearted animal person but the damage that gophers and moles do around here.....well, let's just say that if one ever pops his head up near me, I may just whack it on the head with my shovel. Whack-a-mole must have been invented by a gardener at their wit's end!

They are just about impossible to get rid of, too. Good luck and my sympathies to you!

Lynn

Years ago we had mole problems. We stuffed moth balls into there holes. They then moved to the neighbors yard. LOL. oops! LOL

I will like him. I like almost all critters. Lucky for me he is tunneling under the bricks..the bricks have weep holes and that is where I see the piles of dirt. The raised bed is 4 ft tall. I think we are good. I need proof he will do damage before I get rid of him. I am so tired of Americans thinking we have to kill everything because it's inconvenient. Having said that..I do understand some animals can be bad.

I had moles a few yrs back. I suppose they still are around, but I haven't seen much activity for awhile. Possibly the neighbor's cats have gotten them. I just recently fixed a humongous sink hole they left me at the corner of one of the front rose beds. The little brats dug it out and shoved the dirt up out the seam in the nearby concrete driveway about 5yrs ago. It's taken me that long to get around to filling the hole in. It was right at the walkway, and I had to yank up the weed barrier I put down under the gravel. Took about 3-4cu ft of dirt to fill it in. I used to hate walking out there to work in that area, because I'd either trip or sink down further in the hole. I'm so glad I finally fixed it!!

Nah, those little buggars need to go away!! Don't feel bad about trying to get rid of them. They're pests!!

They are just being moles..if I need to I will relocate them

We had the "mole man" come to try to rid our garden of moles, but it seemed like the never ending story. It didn't seem to matter how many he trapped, there was one to take its place. We finally gave up and decided to live with them when we were told that once the tunnels were empty that voles would move in and they do eat plant roots.

Sorry, zyperiris, I think we, or certainly at least, I, misunderstand your original question - or comment - about your mole and posted our responses accordingly. To most of us, they are a major pest and nuisance and very, very difficult to get rid of (how can you get rid of it when you can't see it!). I get very discouraged when they come back into my yard because they have been a severe problem to me. When I read that you spotted one in your yard, I thought, oh no! Actually, if they just stayed in the yard and out of my beds, I wouldn't even care so much that they are there.

Hopefully you can live peacefully with yours; it would certainly be easier and less stressful to do so.

How can a gardener be happy with moles?
Remember, one day or another you have got to get rid of them and eradicating moles out of garden is one of the toughest gardening jobs
So why don't you start thinking about getting rid of them instead of appreciating them?

I didn't say anything about killing him, I just said he needed to be removed. I also know that you aren't going to use any pesticides to get rid of the grubs that he is eating. And where there is one, there are bound to be others soon.

LOL. Yah I definitely have angst over the mole. I don't mind moles. I don't mind them over by the side yard by the old septic tank. I did breath deep when I saw the holes by my rose garden. The man at the nursery said they will not eat roots..now I see they may. What to do..hum..Well the castor oil can kill them..it gives them diarrhea and they die..or maybe they just get a tummy ache. Perhaps I will try the moth balls. I just am trying to appreciate nature. But then if a Grizzly moved in I would appreciate it while calling animal control to move it away so it doesn't eat me.

Gopher and voles make moles look good. That's how I learned to get along with moles. They're easy prey for my ratters, who would be better compensated for dispatching vermin other than moles.

Oh I misunderstood..the tunnels will bring Voles. I have not seen Voles. I think maybe I will have hubby do some moth balls and see if they move. I know I have LOTS of moles. But this is the first time I have seen them near my rose garden. Rosessecretgarden I am a gardener who enjoys the wildlife as much as the gardening. I have a "Live and let live" attitude..as long as they are not threatening my garden too much. They have a wonderful green belt behind my yard..and there are other places nearby for them to go.

What I did was I placed a fair amount of moth balls into all the holes I seen. I then, closed each hole off, by adding dirt, ect. They moved to another spot very quickly.

You might find this article on moles interesting.

Here is a link that might be useful: Our friend the mole

Interesting article. I have a resident mole...every time the snow melts, I find more mounds of dirt where he/she is adding to units to its mole condo. There's ALOT of the hills, so I assumed we had alot of moles living in our 2.5 acres. I do know there's lots of Japanese Beetle grubs for them to eat...so I guess it's a tradeoff.

Terry, I was told that there would be approximately 4 moles to one acre of land. We have one acre, but it sure looks like there are an awful lot of them out there. They do apparently need lots of room to roam. I don't know if this is true, but it was the mole man who told me and I assume he knows.

Very interesting article Majenta. We have no mole hills here, but, I do see them running around once in awhile.

I read a few more articles on moles. They do not eat plant roots. But, they possibly could disturb plant roots and cause damage to the plant that way. They prefer insects and earthworms to eat. They are blind.

Article called Voles and Moles:

http://www.rosebay.org/chapterweb/rosebay/voles_and_moles.html

I was happy to read those articles that Moles can be good guys. I have 4 large mole hills on the side yard..and on the complete other side is the disturbed dirt at the bottom of the bricks. We have a third off a acre and behind us is a huge greenbelt. For now mole is safe

Moles will stay until there foodsource is depleted, grubs, earthworms, insects, ect., then they will likely move on.
Certain species of VOLES will use already dug mole tunnels.
VOLES eat plant roots.
And probably what i'm seeing running around here once in awhile is a mouse, not a mole.

Jim, I would worry about that..However I have not seen any Voles at all. Norway rats from the forest..but no Voles. however I will watch for any.

zyperiris, I wonder if VOLES are only in certain parts of the country or everywhere?
I wouldn't worry about it until your plants start disappearing, then I'd worry. LOL
This has been interesting as I've learned something new. LOL

What is bad about the moles is that I've actually had them tunnel and uproot hostas and plants, and if I don't catch it in time, the plants are uprooted and dry out. I don't mind the tunnels so much because I'm not prissy about the lawn, but it's the uprooting that's annoying. They've destroyed a bed of Impatiens before...little buggers. I still can't bring myself to kill an animal, tho. Snakes are another matter...

Leave the snakes, and you won't have as many problems with voles, moles, and mice.

We don't have voles here, that I'm aware of.

We definitely DO have voles over here on Vashon Island. I discovered it when an occasional rose dies and I tug on it and it comes right out of the soil with all the roots eaten away. Also, the voles quite destroy tulip beds, going along under ground and eating the bulb while leaving the foliage in place. YOu only discover it when the leaves and bud wither and you find the bulb is totally gone. Our cats present us with a constant supply of voles during the spring and fall.

Never saw a mole here until we had been living at this site for about 6 years. Now I occassionally see mole hills but can't remember any damage from them. We already have so much wildlife on our 4 acres that the few I see ae jsut part of the natural balance. My underground garden helpers.

I don't know . . . We don't HAVE Moles here.

But if I could get someone to give me a few moles in exchange for our over-population of Western Pocket Gophers and Ground Squirrels, I think I'd go for it in a second.

Jeri

I also have noticed a large rose bush drooping, tried to straighten it up, and I was holding it -- no roots at all. The entire bottom of the rose was rootless. That happened to about 5 or 6 roses until I began putting them in cages.

The culprit in my garden was either voles or gophers.

What I do is similar to what Jeri does, but if you know you have voles, and you don't act, you may have huge problems in your garden.

In my case there is no "going away" becasue we have a creek in the back of our property. The cages are fine for roses, but I take my chances with some of the smaller flowers.

Sammy

We've found, SO FAR, that our gophers don't go after salvias (native sages) and they don't bother irises. So far, they haven't bothered succulents, either.

But roses?
A banquet.
A curse on all gophers.

Jeri

This is really weird....my cat laid this 'present' by my door for me today. What's weird is that its February and I live in zone 4....can't say that I've ever seen these guys out and about this time of year. I have real problems with them eating my lily bulbs. They also tunnel everywhere in my rose garden. Once in awhile my fat cat
gets ambitious. Guess today he felt frisky.

Celeste
{{gwi:226972}}

So what is that? A Mole? Anyhoo summer before last we had to get an exterminator for the Norway rats. He used safe bait stations. So maybe if I had Voles that's where they went?

Celeste, it kinda looks like a mole to me...as hard as the ground is frozen here in Illinois, they are still very active and tunneling away. My yard looks like Mole City. There are mounds everywhere that weren't there in late fall, so I don't think they hibernate. I just don't know how they can work the frozen tundra.

Celeste,

It's a shrew--not sure exactly what kind. Too bad the cat got it, they are wonderful little predators to have in the garden. We didn't have any problem with voles until the neighbor's cat started killing our shrews on a regular basis. Now we don't ever see shrews and the voles are multiplying.

Shrews have really high metabolisms and will eat more than their body weight daily--they even take on things (like mice and voles!) bigger than they are. A good thing to have in your yard.

We have moles in our yard.
I took the cat droppings from my litter box and drop it anywhere I see the mole hole.
He moves on for awhile, then comes back sooner or later, time to drop those kitty presents again as I see he is back. LOL (moles hate cats).

Lucretia...
Thanks for identifying the critter. I wasn't sure what it was. I didn't know if it was a mole or a vole or what. (I have heard of people being called 'shrews' but didn't know what an actual shrew looked like). Not to worry about their population going down....my cat is not
much of a killer, which is what surprised me when I saw
this thing lying in the snow. He usually just sits there, ignoring everything, and I've seen chipmunks walk right by him and stick out their tongues...LOL. Must be that it was one of the few days all this winter I let him go out and he felt ambitious.

I feel kind of sorry for the shrew, now that I know he's
not the guilty party who eats my lily bulbs.

Celeste

Maybe another shrew will move in to take this one's place. They are kind of neat little critters--one of the only venomous mammals! They have venom in their saliva to help paralyze their prey, which they find using echolocation--like bats and dolphins. (It's not terribly poisonous--a shrew bite on a person would probably only swell and be sore for a few days. That's if you could even get hold of one--they're really fast.) But they can bite a worm, paralyze it, and store it to eat for later. Since it's alive, it won't spoil. They also have extremely fast heartbeats--some have pulses of more than 800 beats per minute. I've read that you can scare a shrew to death by making a loud noise or trapping it--their little hearts just can't take the stress.

Kind of like a cross between a hummingbird and a shark, cruising the rose bed looking for grubs and any other tasty bit it can get its little chompers on and eating almost constantly. Voles and mice, beware!

Here the scoop on Moles... They are Carnivorous, and do not eat plant roots. Thier favorite foods are Grubs, and Earthworms. If you fertilize heavily your lawn or beds, it
will produce more Grubs(which do eat plant roots), so the Mole is actually doing you a favor. Thier tunneling will
loosen the compacted soil, so that can be a good thing, however you could also step on a soft spot and turn your ankle.
I had problems about 4 years ago with a Mole, after 17 years of nothing. The only thing we did was use weed and feed on lawn and started using sprinkler alot to green up lawn. All that water cause Earthworms to head for the surface and our Mole was right on thier trail.
I tried Baits (forget it, they are all grain based, and Moles don't like cereal Lol)The only way to get a Mole is either a trap, which didn't work for me. I finally got my
Mole by stomping down an actyive feeding tunnel, and waiting for the Mole to start it's repair. You stomp down a tunnel, and come back in about 20 minutes or so and wait.
If it is an active feeding tunnel, it will start pushing up the soil to repair it's tunnel. You then take a long shovel (sharpshooter type) and quickly shove it in hard , and flip upwards. The mole will come flying out of the ground with the soil. You can then turn shovel sideways and dispatch it quickly, or if you can grab it (wear thick gloves, they bite) and put in a bucket. You can then take him far away.
Moles are very solitary, except in Fall or early Spring during breeding season. So if you get it, chances are it will be the only one, unless you have a large property.
When trying to catch it, you need to be VERY Quiet , as they have excellent hearing, and respond to the vibrations
of your footsteps. I managed to catch the two that were
in my garden for two years in a row. I saw evidence last year of one, but never ever saw any movement. It seems to have returned this Spring, and i still haven't seen anything.
I started puttingmany of my Hostas, Heucheras etc, in large pots, and that way it cannot disturb much, except a few recently set out bedding plants.
Moles have been annoying gardeners and farmers since the Middle Ages, and still do. Good Luck catching it.

I have mole tunnels in the lawn, but it's the voles that kill me. I plant every single rose and most else in a hardware cloth basket. I certainly wouldn't mind if some our our snakes came out of the woods and earned their keep!

The mole tunnels are nearing my new conifer plantings, though. I've been stomping them down, but a few mothballs wouldn't bother me. Do they hurt nearby plants or anything(the mothballs)?

zyperiris
Your comment about castor oil remided me of a story told to me by a man who explaned to me how he got bald.
Seems he got head lice. When he asked the Pharmacist for a remedy, he was given castor oil and told to rub it on his head. Well it worked, but in the process, the lice got diarrhea and pulled all his hair out to wipe their butts.
Wonder if that's how it works on the moles?

I have not seen the issue of moth balls being addressed here. Aren't they insecticides? They really stink, and their purpose is usually to protect wool from "insects".
Unless you are very comfortable with the use of insecticides, I would suggest that you research how they work.

I have no option except the cages since we live so near a creek.

Sammy

I would not kill my mole unless it got very bad. I am horrified someone would suggest catching it and cutting it in half with a shovel. The mole activity has slowed down. No problem

Recently I have been visited by unwanted guest/s. I believe this being due to an established tree being cut down in land adjacent to my property. Thus causing the root system to die. Causing tunnel collapse & evidence of tunneling. After reading about these little 'diggers' I have decided to live side by side, hopefully happily with them. If I have killed a priest in a former life; what would I get if I killed a mole? Shudder at the thought. You are safe with me so far guy/s/girl/s.

There were three moles in a nest.the first mole said "i smell sugar" the second mole said"i smell syrup"the third mole said "i smell mollasses"true story.