Voles vs. plant cages-- Round 1.

15 years ago

Hi. The yard and gardens of my recently purchased house seem to be home to moles and possibly voles. I *love* to garden, and as this is our first house and the first garden of my very own, there is no way I'm going to let critters stop me. The only perennials the previous residents had planted were critter-proof plants such as daylilies, lily of the valley, daffodils, lamb's ear, creeping phlox etc etc. The foundation plantings were redone fairly recently (maybe a year or two?) and quite small, so it is hard to tell if they have been subjected to a subterranean buffet or are just still very immature. Last fall I planted all of my bulbs in 1" hex mesh cages. I was advised after the fact that 1" mesh isn't small enough to keep the moles/voles out. I then switched to using cylinders of 1/2" hardware cloth with a generous layer of pea gravel at the bottom and on the surface for all my subsequent plantings. Surprisingly though, all of the bulbs in the 1" hex mesh cages came up despite lots of tunneling activity in their bed. I also noticed there are hostas coming up, which I did not plant. I was told that hostas are a vole favorite, so the presence of several large clumps led me to believe that I did not have voles after all. But now, there appears to be tunneling from the surface down into the hardware cloth/gravel cages. Wouldn't a vole be the culprit in that senario? I am totally confused as well as extremely frustrated by the possiblity of having spent hours making plant cages to no avail. Using poison is not an option-- there are too many unfenced dogs, cats and kids in my 'hood.

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Comments (5)

petzold6596
15 years ago
At the top of this page your will find a "search box." Your problem has been discussed in several resent threads so typing 'mole and voles' in the box will get you answers to your question/s.
maifleur01
15 years ago
If you see one of the unfenced cats catching your critters give it a home if possible. I have a problem now that my vole/shrew/mice killing cat has gone to the great hunting ground. I am aware that cats can and do a lot of damage to property but if you can find one like Miss Kindy who would hunt in my yard when I was outside with her but want in when I went in many of your critters could move on.
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Voles will use mole tunnels if available. I got hit very hard by voles over the winter, first time ever. This is also the first time that I blew the leaves off of my yard onto the hosta bed for 'winter mulch'. Hmmm. Anyway, when I blew the leaves out of the bed, I did see many surface runs. However in order for the voles to do the damage they did, they would have had to burrow down. Among my losses was a HUGE (4' across) Blue Angel. I am still stunned....all that was left was a HOLE in the ground, as if I'd dug it up. Not one iota of the plant remained. Between the major vole attack and the fact that I'm planning to move, I dug up all of my remaining hosta and put them in pots. I begged free pots from a local landscaping company, and before adding the soil, I used 1/4" hardware cloth to cover the holes. I suppose I could plant the pots like this, but since I'm moving, I just put them on my back patio. If I were planting them, I guess I'd add some gravel to the top. When I do replant them, I will not plant them in pots, but do plan to dig extra big holes and line those with gravel before adding the hosta and soil. I would like to line the hole with the hardware cloth, but I think that would be a big PIA. I don't know what I'll do on top...I'm thinking pine needles.
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victorine72
Original Author
15 years ago
Petzold6596-- your "search box" suggestion is not helpful. This post was preceded by numerous discussions with neighbors, landscape/lawn professionals and out-of-town gardener friends, as well hours of online research (including this website) during the last few months as the situation progressed. Quite obviously, if the answer to my question had been so easily obtained I probably would have found it by now.

Maifleur-- Sorry to hear about your kitty. No doubt she was very well loved. We already have two extremely spoiled indoor cats to whom we are so attached, we could never let outside for fear of an untimely death on the streets of our corner lot. An outdoor cat is an undeniably effective weapon and I suspect our neighborhood's outdoor cat population does an admirable job despite being outnumbered 94,358-to-1. The previous residents must have had cats as well. There is a patch of catnip (still green!) near our deck, which two of our feline neighbors visit often. I thought of ripping it up at first, but I've now decided to let it alone in hopes that it will entice the cats to stop back for a snack. And just out of curiosity, by any chance are you french or quebecois?
Kimmsr
15 years ago
There are still people that are confused about Voles, meadow mice, and moles (there are three species of moles in the USA). Moles are carnivuors, they eat only meat, insects such as earthworms and sometimes grubs so even if you saw their tunnels in your planting beds they are not after your plants, only the earthworms that indicate a good, healthy soil. Voles are vegetarian, they eat seeds and other plant material including roots. They may, or may not, tunnel and they have been known to use the moles tunnels. Sometimes people will wrap a plant with hardware cloth, forgetting the bottom, and find that a vole got to that plants roots anyway.
As long as we are moving into their habitat we will have problems with both voles and moles that wil not be easily solved. Gardeners have been trying to exterminate moles since at least the 1600's since I have an article writen back then that describes a method of mole control.
maifleur01
15 years ago
"by any chance are you french or quebecois?" Sorry, I am not. I had a friend that kept telling me I was his flower as he patted me on my head. Soon it degenerated to maifleur.

Miss Kindy was 19 when she left us. Her sister lived to be 21 but she was not interested in anything other than mice.

A side note on the catnip. If you have foxes in your area they also love catnip when it first comes up in the spring.

Voles vs. plant cages-- Round 1.

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petzold6596

maifleur01

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Voles vs. plant cages-- Round 1.

Comments (5)

petzold6596

maifleur01

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victorine72Original Author

Kimmsr

maifleur01

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