Mmmm ... roast vole.

Nothing is too good for him in the way of punishment.

mebbe roasting is too good for him. Need something with anguish, pain, more pain ... and anguish.

Oh, and did I mention pain and suffering?

_~

dkB

Wow! Those are upsetting photos. I'm hyperventilating. You must be completely sorrowful.
Lainey

Wow, I had no idea...that's very upsetting, especially those well established plants. Hope you can get some roots started on them.

My condolences...

Deanna

#$%# things! I hate voles. I've never caught a hosta in that stage of being devoured before though. Usually I catch it when there is almost nothing left. And now they are eating my sedums too. I'm trying to cage all the new hosta I put in this year. It will take me years to cage all I have already in the ground. An impossible task :(
Pam

I have another bed that they didn't touch. It's small, about 5' x 10' but has some beautiful mature plants - sagae, krossa regal, blue cadet, June, and a newer queen of the seas. I bought some 1/4" x 24" hardware cloth today, and I'm enclosing the bed. Burying the hardware cloth 10" below the soil line and leaving the rest sticking up. It will look bad, but I don't care. I plan to move in the next year, and then I will spend some more money to attractively vole proof my beds.

I just hope my GE survives. It's one of my top 5 favorites, and it was so big. Here it is

So sorry for your loss. Thanks, though, for taking time to photograph them, since I've never personally seen the damage they could do. It's down right scary!

Dratted varments!!!
I still think predators are the answer....much as I hate to see cats preying on my birds.....they do do a number on the voles.
And owls!...I stand out in January ( owl mating season) and listen for hoots!

Thanks for taking time for some great photos of the damage - It would be interesting to see pics of one of the plants in late summer to see how root growth has responded.

Good luck with those buggers.

Paul

Thank you all for the sympathy. I know my losses are miniscule compared to others here who have lost dozens/hundreds.

Lindac, I'm not a cat person. And I don't believe that cats should be allowed to roam, just like my dogs aren't allowed to. However, after experiencing this, I actually thought about getting a cat....

Paul, I will be sure to update on their progress later in the season.

I sound like a broken record: Rat Zapper. Painless. Not disgusting to clean up after.

Attracting an underground creature like a vole to it might be tough but there's got to be a way... I have voles and moles, but what nailed me this spring were the blasted chipmunks.

Here is a link that might be useful: RAT ZAPPER

Just how many rat zapper would someone have to have in their garden? Now, if someone invented a taser big enough to drag behind your garden tractor and it zapped every bugger below the soil, that might work.
Pam

weed30...I don't have a cat, but neighbors do!!! The next best thing. Our neighbor from down the street lets their cat roam and it comes into our yard often. I see it on my back deck waiting to catch a glimpse of the family of chipmunks living under there. I think cats just naturally find their way to a yard with chippies or voles, so maybe one will do so for you, too.

Weed30

It sure is upsetting to find your hosta like that. Last year I lost a few, ?? voles. I just put them in a small bucket with water and they grew new roots.

What I would do if I had yours, would be split them some and try different methods. Put some in water and plant some with rooting hormone. If you do one thing with the whole plant and it does not work then you lose all the plant. If you split them, you have a second or third chance of saving some of them. I really do think just in water is the best and easiest way to go.

Whatever you do I hope it works.

Betty

I feel your pain! I get hit really good at least once a year.

On the plus side almost all of the ones I caught in time made a come back in a year or two.

After seeing your pix , I am glad we kept the mangy one-eyed barn cat that came w/ our property . She is now nice sweet & clean , she brings us "gifts" ... she is worth her weight in gold . ~ Dot

AHHHHH. I know where my Spilt Milk went. I too have voles and up to this point I have not had them eat any of my hostas, but alas I read the above posts and it is all beginning to make sense. First, my Big Daddy wasn't so big and now the Spilt Milk has disappeared. I will have to get those suckers!

Yep homersgarden, sounds like voles. Many of mine are simply gone, absolutely nothing left. I dug up June tonight - 2' across and gorgeous. No damage that I could see, but I'm digging them all out and potting them up for now. I'm putting 1/4" hardware cloth in the bottoms of the pots to cover the holes, in case the little buggers find them. I can't stand to lose any more. They're like children to me! (maybe not quite, but you know what I mean.)

Has anyone tried Repels All? That's my latest idea. I've used it successfully to keep raccoons from tearing up my lawn looking for bugs. I realized in looking more closely at the label that it also supposedly repels voles (among other varmints). It won't kill them but it lasts something like 4-6 weeks and doesn't damage foliage. It's fairly expensive but I'm going to give it a try.

Weed, I found a hole in the soil in the top of my whiskey barrel housing a hosta!
It looks like someone poked an index finger in, about to the depth to the hand!

I thought they wouldn't get into pots!! Maybe it was a chippie! I HOPE!!!!

Oh no - that's not good. I hope it was a chippie or a squirrel.

A small hole about the size of a quarter is a vole. A chippie needs a larger whole. And yes, they can get in pots.
Try a layer of sharp gravel on top of the soil. The skin on their paws is too tender to dig through that. And stuff moth balls in the holes.
Pam

I feel your pain! I haven't had a vole problem but I have has plants eaten to nothing by deer and this year a I had three new ones pulled out by the new squirrels. Little buggers didn't even eat them, they just chewed them and threw them around and left them outside my fence. Ahhhh nature!