Iris issues mulch moles dividing Sibs

I have been lurking and learning so much. I have several questions. When my siberian irises have increased to the point where they have made a complete circle, must they be divided, or will they just start spreading in a different direction? If this isn't clear I can post a photo. Another question, there was talk on this forum I think about hardware cloth "boxes" to protect from voles&moles. I never see anything about baiting a trap for moles, wouldn't moles be attracted by something to put at the trap to lure them into the trap? (I feel so terrible to say this, but 90% of my plants that go into my new garden are in pots yet because of the vole/mole problem, still, I hate to think of "doing them in"...) Another thing, I found 2 kinds of hardware cloth, wire mesh and a very dense, hard plastic that also comes in rolls and is perforated, also labeled hardware cloth. Has anyone had experience with voles/moles chewing through the plastic? Another question, or suggestion, re mulch for the winter, I had a bunch of styrofoam "peanuts" on my hands, and gunny sacks....I wonder if a person filled the gunny sacks with these peanuts and then closed up the top, could they work as mulch if laid over plants needing mulch in the garden? Would their "R" factor be enough to keep away frost damage? I am from the Pacific Northwest, so our winters aren't as cold as some....

hey mizm - where is Gig Harbor? I lived in Tri-Cities/Kennewick for several years.

someone with more mole/vole and sib experience should help you with these questions. but here's what I do know.

Sibs can stay where they are until they exhaust the soil around/under them, which is when they'll start blooming less and less. someone else will have to write in how long that takes.

moles eat the grubs in the soil. my sis has moles and doesn't mind them so much. but letting freezing air down at your iris roots is not good in winter.

voles eat the plant roots and shoots. Sis tries to kill them, and physically finding and killing or relocating the vole works best, usually by going around and stomping on the tunnels until she saw movement underfoot. one person stayed near the exit hole with a sack; all other known exits were blocked with boulders. she literally stomps until the critter bolts out into the sack. I have no idea if voles eat irises.

Both are territorial and usually unless they've already had offspring you'll only have one or a mated pair in a 1/2 acre yard size yard. If you are looking at the two hardware cloths, I'd pick the metal, as both mole/vole are less likely to chew through it.

as for traps, well, I've learned from our local entomologists that Japanese beetle traps are the WORST possible thing you can do to your garden. it does attract them to your garden with the bait. Baits are usually pheramone (sp?) based, i.e., "here's free sex!" or "food orgy!" advertising. If you want all the beetles in a one mile radius of your home in your garden, just put out those beetle traps. seems like any bait for anything else would work too similarly.

Bonjon, Gig Harbor is on the west side of the Cascade Mountains, on Puget Sound. Tri-Cities is east of the Cascades. And it makes a world of difference in the weather. We have much more moisture than Tri-Cities, and Tri-Cities has much more and hotter weather than us. I haven't been lately to Tri-Cities, but everyone says it has just exploded in growth and commerce.. As far as bait for a trap, I was thinking along the lines of something that they eat, like a carrot or roots of some plant...probably less likely to attract them than what you were talking about, but might work....Thanks for your reply....

I can answer the question about the siberians, but can't help you with moles, or voles. Our cat gets them, or the little ponds I have my species iris around drowns them.

Sibs will grow into a circle. They won't spread out much beyond the circle. Sibs have little tiny skinny rhizomes. They will make a few skinny little rhizomes spreading out, but since they are only maybe a 1/4 of an inch wide, they don't spread far outside the circle. They would tend more to grow on top of each other.

Sibs can remain in a clump for about 4 years under good cultivation. Under excellent cultivation (much fertilizer and water), 3, under poor (total neglect), for a long time.

When the circle is complete you will see dying out in the middle. That's when they need to be divided. Or when bloom diminishes they need to be divided.

They can be divided pretty much anytime you want new clumps. Divide into 3-5 fans for bloom the next year. You can divide larger if you wish, some people just divide the circle into 4 parts.

Diploid siberians are much, much easier to divide than tetraploids. Sometimes you can pull apart the fans on the diploids. Tetraploids are very congested (for lack of coming up with a better word), and are much harder to pull apart, so a sharp knife to divide is good for them. Most sites list the siberians which are tetraploids, as it's a good selling point, as they grow much more vigorously, and have larger flowers.

It's best to divide in early spring or fall (6 weeks before ground freeze, not frost which won't hurt them). Amend the planting hole for the new irises with well composted manure, peat or compost. Mulch well, and water right up until ground freeze, if you don't get at least 1 inch of rain per week. I like to water them in with Miracle Gro the first watering.

Voles will definately eat iris roots. One year with heavy snow, giving them a place to hide, a friend's beardless bed was destroyed.

Let me tell you they will eat the roots and if you can not get in control you can loose an entire row...I know

D

Hope the gophers have gone elsewhere this year.

Thank you to everyone for advice, I read a great pest management article from Snohomish COunty extension here that gave good advice on what works, (only live traps) and what doesn't work (windmills, etc) according to all the testing they did. I'm going to focus on the voles, and for those, the article said use regular food baited moustraps in the tunnels...I'll try it...but I won't, just can't, use poison, too many other harmless critters that it could affect...

good reasoning and research, meow!

For gophers, one doesn't bait the traps. IrisMA, all your gophers have moved to New Mexico. It has become such a crisis that even the city has been trying new and different methods to kill them -- propane and oxygen in their holes then remote ignition of the explosion.
I have been driven to trapping. It really works and nothing else I have tried does. I use the traps in their tunnels. But moles and voles may need bait. Don't know about that. But for gophers traps in the tunnels work like mad. The black hole trips work some but not as well as the gopher traps in their tunnels.

Some people bait with peanut butter for the voles.

Sounds like they are kind of like underground mice in their habits. Gophers apparently run around without looking where they are going underground and run into the traps and Zap. I find I am not at all sorry when I kill a gopher. They have eaten way too many of my iris -- they prefer the expensive ones!

yup pajar, the moles/voles are very much more like mice, though some can be larger. similar to shrews. gophers more of ground weasel or big squirrel, right?

Didn't you know gophers can read the price tags, Betty? Try putting a price tag on the more expensive ones that says 99c before planting.

I've never seen a shrew, Bonjon, but we have some big moles/ voles here. My husband found one he thought was a rat from the size. Luckily it wasn't as I absolutely hate and am afraid of rats.

Polly, why didn't you tell me? Of course, they read price tags! I should have known. From now on I will mark each rhizome 2 cents!

Don't know anything about gophers biologically except that I hate them. They look to me like a red haired mole but I haven't seen anything but pictures of moles. They have buck teeth and feet adapted for digging -- no surprise there. Their hair is dark underneath and reddish on top. And they have squinty eyes.

If relocating, make sure you take them a number of miles away as they find their way home! (Homing)
deb

Mizmeow, Moles don't eat plants. They eat grubs and bugs. Moles leave mounds of dirt outside of their holes. With voles, there won't be any dirt mounds, just holes. Moles do however kill plants by tunneling through their roots. Voles will use the tunnels dug by moles and groundhogs.
The best way to control moles is to limit their food source. Milky Spore is the best defense against grubs. Beneficial Nematodes are really helpful too. Now is one of the best times to apply them as the grubs are closer to the top of the soil. Right now Arbico Organics is having a sale on their nematodes. BTW, they and the Milky Spore will also kill the Japanese Beetles larvae for next year's plague if applied now. An application of Diotomaceous Earth will also help with them and other crawling insects.
I have tried every known poison and trapping method for the voles and am sad to say that they only reduce (temporarly) the population. They do not eradicate it. The poisons also kill off their natural predators. The best defenses are to protect the plants with hardware cloth and moats made from chicken grit.

Denise, I'm thinking that because you grow your Iris in rows that row long moats of chicken grit might work for you. They have to be at least 4" wide and 6" deep and must not be mulched over. Also strips of hardware cloth about a foot wide, buried vertically 6 to 8" deep with 3 to 4" above the ground might work too. Make sure to use the quarter inch hole cloth, they can get into the half inch holes. This is expensive and labor intensive, so I'm not sure which would be more cost effective, trying to defend against them or just replacing your inventory. You might try it on part of a row.

Although some people swear that mice traps loaded with apples or peanutbutter works, I've never caught one that way despite repeated attempts. I've found that the Castor Oil based repellants just make them run into and start destroying another part of your garden and lawn.

Voles can reproduce every two weeks and can have as many as 13 in a litter. That's an incredible amount of manual trapping. You have to get them out of your lawn too or they will just migrate to your beds in the winter in search of food.

Excellent info, stormyla.

Thank you, pajaritomt. Unfortunately, I know more about those beasts that I ever wanted too. Sometimes I think that after I chase or eradicate some, new ones just move on in from my neighbor's yards. But then I stop and realize that my neighbors don't do anything to their yards that would chase them over here. But then again, they also don't have a whole smorgasbord of tasty plants to eat.

For the nematodes here's the Arbico website:

http://www.arbico-organics.com/

Milky Spore is expensive but I found the best prices at Snow Pond Farm Supply, website below:

http://www.snow-pond.com/

Stormlya, thanks for your hard won advice...it will save me time, money and heartache, because if I don't get rid of these voles, or manage them, planting anything will just result in loss...and I do so love my irises, and all my plants....when I say this to a non gardener, I get the strangest looks, but I know true gardeners understand...

Good luck Mizmeow. Short of having a whole family of cats and a few snakes, I don't know of anything that will get rid of them other than vigilant manual trapping using baits in their tunnels. They are really wiley buggers and you have to change the types of bait every 10 days or so as they get wise to it and stop eating. I used to alternate between ZP and Ramik. The ZP is supposed to not harm pets, but the Ramik is strictnine. It certainly reduced my predatory bird population which was counterproductive to the goal.

I don't use baits in trapping gophers and have been very successful at it. I just put gopher traps in their tunnels and they run right into them. That is why I use traps. No poison for my neighborhood's dogs, my own included, and other animals that come by.

pajaritomt, I was speaking of baits in relation to voles, not gophers. I have read that gophers are easy to catch in traps, but luckily, I've never had to try. I agree that the risks of using poisons on the voles definitely outweighs the benefits.

Pajaritomt....what kind of gopher traps. Can you show us a picture of one....I might need to get some of those.

Here is a picture:

http://doitbest.com/Mole+and+gopher+traps+and+repellants-Woodstream+Corp-model-0615-doitbest-sku-712422.dib

I buy these at my local DoitBest Hardware store for $7.95 each -- pricey for a trap, but they last forever. They come with directions -- be sure you get them. I follow them precisely. I use two per tunnel like they say, one pointed in each direction. I tie the traps with a string to a stake so the gopher can't run off with them. You have to fine a horizontal tunnel to put them in. Takes a little study of the gopher's habits, but not too much. Don't put them in the tunnels that are verticle -- from horizontal tunnel to ground. They are meant for the horizontal tunnels. I go around with a stick poking in the ground to find the horizontal tunnels. Sometimes I find them because my food sinks into them.

There is another kind of baitless trap called the "black hole" which is used in the verticle tunnel. It does work but I find the metal traps work far better, and that they are less expensive in the long run.

Whenever I see fresh diggings in my garden, I look for the tunnel and place my traps. Oh, by the way, I reuse the tunnel over and over again. I take the dead gopher out using disposable gloves, reset the traps, and then cover the hole with a black plastic garbage bag full of dirt or sand. Then I am careful to seal the hole with more dirt or sand so light doesn't get in. I have often caught more than one gopher in a tunnel. You never eradicate them, but you set them back for a while. They are rodents and multiply like crazy. There is always a new batch of gophers to replace the old ones. Alas!

Here is a picture:

http://doitbest.com/Mole+and+gopher+traps+and+repellants-Woodstream+Corp-model-0615-doitbest-sku-712422.dib

I buy these at my local DoitBest Hardware store for $7.95 each -- pricey for a trap, but they last forever. They come with directions -- be sure you get them. I follow them precisely. I use two per tunnel like they say, one pointed in each direction. I tie the traps with a string to a stake so the gopher can't run off with them. You have to fine a horizontal tunnel to put them in. Takes a little study of the gopher's habits, but not too much. Don't put them in the tunnels that are verticle -- from horizontal tunnel to ground. They are meant for the horizontal tunnels. I go around with a stick poking in the ground to find the horizontal tunnels. Sometimes I find them because my food sinks into them.

There is another kind of baitless trap called the "black hole" which is used in the verticle tunnel. It does work but I find the metal traps work far better, and that they are less expensive in the long run.

Whenever I see fresh diggings in my garden, I look for the tunnel and place my traps. Oh, by the way, I reuse the tunnel over and over again. I take the dead gopher out using disposable gloves, reset the traps, and then cover the hole with a black plastic garbage bag full of dirt or sand. Then I am careful to seal the hole with more dirt or sand so light doesn't get in. I have often caught more than one gopher in a tunnel. You never eradicate them, but you set them back for a while. They are rodents and multiply like crazy. There is always a new batch of gophers to replace the old ones. Alas!

I have to find that I am completely devoid of mercy toward these little critters. I feel a great glee when I kill one. They have just destroyed so many of my expensive irises, that I have lost any soft feelings I normally have for small furry critters.

LOL, It's the Bill Murray syndrome! I too suffer from it. So far there's no know cure.

Yep, I've got it bad, too. I even enjoy watching Caddy Shack every now and then. Maybe I even need to buy that DVD. It is a gardening classic!

Hi
I am new here. I know most of you will be shocked but to get rid of mice, voles/moles, get a black snake. We had a mouse infestation and moles/voles that we could not get rid off. We tried everything. We were about to call a pest control company, when all of sudden, all our pest were gone. When all the tropical storms came through here a year or so ago we had to go to the basement because of a tornado and there he was. He was about three feet then, he is about five now. I don't know about other critters. You can laugh if you like but this is a no fuss no mess solution and no money!

This message was edited Oct 4, 2009 1:09 PM

Certainly a good solution. I have only seen garter snakes around here. They're a bit too small to be helpful.

I keep hoping to see some snakes, but so far none. Maybe they are more abundant in warmer climates. When I was a girl, sometimes we would come across some shed snake skin, but I haven't seen any in years. Maybe it's all of the development that has made them scarce. I know folks in the more rural areas still have them.

Hmmmmmmmm I am indeed very lucky to live where I live. Garters are small. I wish I could help you. Those moles/voles will destroy your lawn. I am satisfied them or some varmit ate all my tulips.

Everybody thank you for your input. Bonjon, thank you for correcting me, yes, I meant standards...I just have vole-itis of the brain...BUT!! help is on the way, I think.

I have been doing research on what cities/states pest management control agencies do for pest control. Adapting those methods, which can be googled, a preliminary plan for getting rid of my voles would go something like this: sterilize the males, stabilize the population, live trap them, relocate them. Perhaps using haveaheart live traps, keep them open, bait the traps with peanut butter, whatever the voles love, get them used to eating from the open trap, set the trap near their entry/exit hole, and put a huge box over the hole and the trap so when they come out that hole, they can't miss the open trap with the bait, BUT, put a sterilizing substance in the bait food, it doesn't kill them, but sterilizes them. It is an involved process, but I just don't want to see and mess with so many dead ones in traps, would rather relocate them....I would like members to help refine this process after the laughter dies down....I know it's wierd, but I'm trying to find solution....

mizmeow, Havahart doesn't make a trap small enough for voles. Their smallest is for moles. The openings in that cage are large enough to let the voles get out. Sterilization sounds great. I'd be willing to put out a substance that does that. Did you come across one?
I spoke to 5 or 6 different exterminators about voles and none of them mentioned sterilization. In fact they pretty much all told me that they have had no success with voles and that I shouldn't waste my $ on a pro as I could do the same things they would myself. .I wonder if it's a new approach, or just not a widely accepted one. Believe me, I'll never laugh at anyone's vole fighting techniques!!

I have found that most of the products used to get rid of the food supply ( grubs) will unfortunately also rid your soils of earthworms and other beneficials

Sharondippity, That's very true of pesticide products like Grubx. The Milky Spore does not have that effect, nor in my experience, do the beneficial nematodes.

That's good to know. Now if I can just win enough at the local casino to cover 40 acres of Milky spore and beni nematodes I"ll be happy.

Turned my ankle twice recently stepping in a tunnel under the sod in the sand. Not bad, but I can sure can see it happening. Old folks don't even need to break a fingernail.

My goodness Sharondippity, you might have to take out a second mortgage for that! They do sell the Milky Spore much more cheaply for farming quantities. It cost me $350 to do an acre. But Milky Spore is a lot like Mycorrhizza, it's a fungus of sorts and if you till your land, it might disturb it. You can read the Q & A on the website.

The Beneficial Nematodes are SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper in agricultural quantities.

Arbico Organics is running a special from now till year end. I started a thread on it here:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1046645/

milky spore multiplies in the soil, but it takes a while

I may just have to depend on the armadillo to eat the grubs and the red tail hawks to get the underground critters when they pop up. I have seen them hunt for them, it's neat

Yuk, I had a close encounter with two of those rascals today. Alas, they were too fast for me!! I'd like to import some predators.