Northeast Gardening: Voles ate my tree peony and zebra grass - HELP!, 0 by plymouthgarden

plymouthgarden wrote:
Hi Folks - I'm sort of new here - haven't "subscribed" in well over a year. But I'm back!

After spending much of the winter with snow on the ground here in Plymouth - everything finally melted, it warmed up and we ventured into the yard. We got good and cleaned up last month.

Yesterday, noticing that my zebra grass was only 4" tall and very wispy (porcupine/morning light grasses were a good 14") - cleaning up dead stuff and POP - the entire thing (about 12" across) came out in my HANDS! If you grow grasses, you know you practically need a backhoe to dig out these old, established grasses. This zebra was in the middle of my bed - maybe 10' with flowers last year. 9th year maybe? It's a HUGE loss! There is some live matter there, but nothing like the 3' across clump that was there!

So....what should I put there? Another zebra grass? I don't have many full sun spots in my yard and I thought maybe I should take advantage and plant something I've yearned for - maybe a Clethra or some sort of Magnolia - except I do have that large hollywood juniper in that bed.

I dug down and found old tree roots, but didn't "tunnels", but I'm guessing from the tooth marks on the roots that voles got it. Our cat has been catching what we thought were mice or moles, but maybe they were voles. If I put something in that same place, will they just eat that?

Here is an old photo - the zebra is in the middle.....

And I can't even talk about the tree peony - this would have been the 4th year - and it's been one of my favorite plants. Going to have to order one - my favorite nursery here doesn't have any - and haven't seen them anywhere else yet, but it's early.

Thanks!

Kara