Moles/voles eat Lily bulbs??

I hired a private vole patrol for my flower beds. Their names are Bandit, Champ and Piglet. They do quite well and once in a while they will hire in some local mercenaries when they feel it's necessary. :) They are pretty cheap to hire and switch to mouse patrol in the winter months. :) LOL

Ticker, I am seriously considering hiring some mercenaries!!

You can find feral cats easily, spayed and neutered, and you feed them, they'll keep those voles and moles out of your plants. My resident ferals, Mrs. White Paws and Chester (trapped, fixed and released by us) bring us gifts to show how hard they are working for the food we give them. They came into our lives accidentally, but you can actually contact your local friends of ferals organization and they will give you a cat to feed that will work for you ;)

Here is Mrs. Whitepaws.

And here is Chester keeping a lookout from high atop the birdbath, looking for any loose critters.

Magnolialover, Thank you. I may just look into that.

Since we're talkin' cats now, these are two of the best youtube videos I've seen:
The Mean Kitty Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qit3ALTelOo
and you ladies will like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQtRRd2-YG8

Oh yeah.....

Stormy you have a good point about the loss of habitat. And sometimes voles just find good meals. I moved out to a conservation community built on former farmland 11 years ago. For the first few years it was gardening bliss, because there were only about 75 homes scattered over 700 acres. At about the 200 mark that all changed - rabbits, voles, because there was fine dining to be had in Donna Yard. Whoo hoo! Lilies, tulips! YUM! I would see trails every spring where they would run to the base of an oakleaf hydrangea to get to my grass beds, and then use those as cover to forage. The same pathway every year. And it seemed to happen over night, but probably didn't. It's the year that you lose hundreds that gets your attention. Thus the fury with the shovel (loved the comments!!)

I've found the upside to a neighbor's cat. I used to run it out of the yard because I have several birds' nests. Then I noticed that there were fewer rabbits and chipmunks. Hmmm...

D

Oh yeah, both of those youtube videos are pretty cute. :)

Donna, You are right. It is the year when you have all sorts of unexpected losses that gets your attention. And for me it was very difficult to narrow it down as there were so many conflicting concurrent events. The bunnies were having their fun. The moles were tunneling under shrubs. The Groundhogs were ripping up shrubs and pulling plants down into their holes. The squirrels were ripping apart Hosta and digging up bulbs The ground was getting spongy and large shrubs started dying.

I moved here 4 years ago and the first 8 months were spent clearing out the massive thicket of wild shrubs and vines that were under the trees all along the back & one side of the property. It had grown wild for 20 years. Those areas became my 2 big beds. The 5 properties here whose backyards all ajoin all aquired new owners in a 2 year time frame. Every one of them started clearing out years of wild growth & big piles of wood and yard debris. We all disturbed a lot of wildlife habitat.

It was the shrubs that got my attention. Laurels, Rhodos, Azaleas, Dogwoods would just seem to die over night. The Dogwoods and Deciduous Azaleas would be leafing out one day and the next would be dead. Of course I had no idea they were being root eaten. New Rhodos were torn out of the ground and thrown about the bed. (Groundhog). Laurels would have all of the soil removed from under them and be hanging in midair.(Moles) The ground under the Dogwoods started sinking (voles). Ferns started disappearing.(Groundhogs and voles).

But it was the loss of 6 Azaleas that were 5' tall that finally clued me in. I dug this one up and found the culprits.

Sorry, even magnified I don't see the culprits.

???

LOL They're in their den snoozing with bellies full of azalea roots!!!

Where's my shovel?

LOL, I could have used you yesterday, Donna. I was rounding up all of the garden "ornaments" to bring into the basement & 2 or 3 times, I picked something up and disturbed one of those vile creatures who'd made a condo out of the object! There are 2 large very brazen ones who live in the sunny bed on the one side of my house. Every time I work over there, they come running out to see what I'm doing. Then they play cat and mouse with me, ducking behind the shrubs.

My front shrub bed has a small family that lives under the Heather and a larger family under the Blue Rug Juniper. I'm keeping a close eye on the SDB Iris collection and the Poppies in that bed. The ones that live under the Heather always stick their heads up and peep out at me when I work there, but they are timid and never emerge while I'm there.

I have some lilies that were planted several years ago that I want to dig up and replant in the chicken grit. I'm not worried about most of them, because I should be able to fully cut their foliage back in the next week or so.

But I have a nice group of Conca D'ors that almost reached 10' tall this year. After they finished blooming, I cut the 3 feet of bloom stalks off. Then about 3 weeks later, we started getting very high wind storms and I was worried that the stalks would snap off at ground level, so I cut another 2 to 3' of stalk down.

Here's what the stalks look like today. They are not yellowing at all. Our ground doesn't usually freeze until late December to early January.

Does anyone know how long I should wait to cut these stalks and lift and replant the bulbs?

Hi Stormy,

I had a BUNCH of those. When foliage is like that, and the bulbs are clearly that mature, I think you can feel free to lift them, cut the stalks off and move them, and they won't suffer. The other alternative is to dig up the clump with foliage intact and put it in a pail with some compost for a few days to let them mature more (I did that when I needed to move bulbs I was digging up to give away, and I sometimes do it when I'm not sure where I want to move the bulbs).

But we had ton of rain this year, and I think that is why the foliage is so lush. I think that you can feel quite comfy deadheading them and replanting them.

Anyone else have different thoughts?

And LOL, you could never off those little guys. It's clear that you and your voles have a relationship!

Donna

Of course, orientpets in general all hold their foliage well past frosts and often into the snow in colder climates. It's a trait that doesn't seem to hurt them. In zone 4, I dug mine that I needed to transplant last week, but even in your zone you could do it now.

There is really only one thing I would take issue with Donna's advice, and even that is fairly trivial:
The other alternative is to dig up the clump with foliage intact and put it in a pail with some compost for a few days to let them mature more

Obviously, the reason for the "pail treatment" is to hurry the plants toward winter dormancy. But at this time of year, you need not hold them for any length of time to achieve this end. A simple and quick transplanting will provide the needed trauma for that. While this would be the correct irrefutable advice for spring bulbs that go completely dormant, like tulips, and in which case you would let them dry completely, not so for lilies. This is because lilium bulbs do not go completely dormant in the cold season. (If they did, we wouldn't have the problem of martagons sulking after being dug or the year of reestablishment that orientpets have after transplanting.)

Even though I do pull most of my lily stalks completely in the fall, orientpets usually are an exception, because they just aren't ready. However, this season I was able to gently yank my Sarabande, bu not White Henryi.

In my climate, since orientpet don't seem to naturally go dormant "on schedule", and stalks always freeze out, my logic says that keeping a stalk on after transplanting might not be the best thing. While the normal thinking is that food from the stalk migrates into the bulb for winter dormancy, since the stalks of oreintpets do not want to die yet, would not not food from the bulb migrate into the stalk to keep it going? merely logical conjecture here, and in the end I suspect the difference, if any, is minimal. I would pick the easiest route, and cut the stalks.

Actually, the purpose of the pail treatment was not to prompt dormancy but rather the opposite. I wanted to fool the lilies into thinking they were still in the ground. I dug them up to give them away, and since lilies do not have a tunic to protect them, and I needed to wait a couple of weeks before I could send them away, it was important that they "believe" that they were in the ground. I did not want them to go dormant, and by surrounding them with an atmosphere like that in the ground (in a clump, in soil) in order to fool them into thinking that they were indeed in the ground. Once I was ready to mail them, I cut off the foliage, took them out of the soil and prepared them for shipping.

Ah, so you did good, Donna.

So then, why wouldn't I just dig them up with the soil intact and plant them soil and all in Chicken grit "bowls" in the earth and then top with the grit? I'd hate to lose next year's bloom.

Donna, These bulbs were only planted 3 springs ago. Last year when they hit 7', I thought they were full grown.

Oh and Donna, I have Euthanized many of the little devils to put me out of my misery!! I just would not be able to hack them to death. I have nightmares about voles now! LOL

Stormy,

I'm sorry that I did not make clear that I dig them up with the soil intact and replant them all the time. Somtimes I just want to take a clump and give them more room in an empty space, rather than separate them immediately. So I just prepare the new bed, take a fork and lift the clump, pick it up and carry it where I want it to be, put it there and finish the job.

In other words (and a lot fewer) I do exactly what you are proposing to do. As long as there is sufficient nutrition (and protection) at the new site, there is no need to separate them. Do note, though that they will only get bigger and be harder to separate in the future.

Make sense (I don't always)?

Donna

Yes, Thanks Donna!

I went to move some lilies the other day, and guess what, no more lilies. They had eaten everything, no bulb anywhere. Those lilies had been there over 6 years. I hope they dont get to my new ones.

Oh Marie, So sorry to hear that. Were you able to protect the Lady Slippers?

Marie, I'm so sorry. Six year old lilies are quite nice, and nothing can make up for the time. This seems sadly familiar. Thay have "found" you.

I just finished putting in all my new lilies, and moving old ones around. I did not lose any to voles this year, and my daffodil protected ones were left untouched. Next year, if all goes well again, I will post pictures of where the daffs come up and then pictures of the lilies.

Lady Slippers are very special. I hope that yours were spared.

Donna

Hi ...I just went back and reread and my question was answered! Thanks, everyone!

This message was edited Nov 7, 2009 6:06 PM

Found this list for Monocots:

http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/prepareChecklist.do;jsessionid=E4F5321DA9DD15E4C255208A9F859939?checklist=monocots%40%40314101120090334290

Or if you can find the family* the plant belongs to, this would be more complete:

http://data.kew.org/vpfg1992/genlist.html

* species are within genera(genus)
genera are within of families

This message was edited Nov 9, 2009 10:18 PM

Leftwood, Thank you very much!!

I added another link above.

They were not in that bed. These lilies I had bought on clearance many years ago and just stuck them in the ground. They have , or had, bloomed so nice each year in late july. The voles also got some of my new lilies that bloomed a nice rich pink this year. As soon as I saw what was happening to them I moved them. I hope I saved them from the voles. The voles were running in the path of a mole run. I should have known.

Maglover...love the pic of Chester. What a great spot for pouncing! Do you need to bring these cats inside in the winter? Don't know anything about feral cats.

Hey Guys! I got "Bloom of the day" today with a Lily photo!

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/botd.php?date=2009-11-11

Congrats stormyla! 'Bout time there was a nice lily in there!

Stormy--Beautiful photo and Lily. Bravo!!!! to you!

Sandandsea, Thank you! That was my first Oriental Lily and I have been hooked ever since.

sandandsea, the cats are outside all winter. They have some hay bales to keep them warm and some spaces under our deck, protected. They were feral when they first came around. Though I must say, they are evry used to us that feed them. In the winter we can get quite close to them. It's soo sad when I can see the frost on their whiskers on cold days. But I like to think we take pretty good care of them for the work they do. Both of them have been trapped and fixed, so do not contribute to any overpopulation problems. But even that took some doing.

Stormy,

Congrats on the bloom of the day. It's gorgeous.

Stormy, absolutely beautiful. congrats.

Great shot. Beautiful Lily. In case you can't see it -- I'm tipping my hat to you. :)

Thanks, Donna, Debbie & Daisycat. I just love a hat tipper!! 3D's in a row!!