VOLES - the only way to keep them at bay

This last spring I came home from snowbirding to find my garden had suffered easily $400.00 or more in damage from VOLES.

First I tried to drown them by running a hose down the holes for an hour – that did not work – they can run fast enough to get out another hole before the water hits them….and turns out they do not “hibernate underground” like moles or gophers but rather stay awake all winter “eating”, so you cannot catch them unawares and drown them in their sleep.

Tried to use smoke bombs on them, but, though it seemed to chase them away for awhile, more came back, using the same run or making others.

Finally, neighbors clued me in to the only surefire way they had found that worked….”underground screen-basketing” any area you want the voles to stay out of, using aluminum (NOT FIBERGLASS) window screening. I've been told by neighbors that this keeps the voles out of the flower garden as they dig under the screening, which has no breaks in it underground or on top of the ground for about 4-6 inches inside and against the brick or wood surrounding the garden above the ground, and keep going off to other feeding grounds. The neighbors say the voles, when aboveground, run sideways along the bottom of the bricks or wood on top of the ground if they come out of their holes, so they don’t invade the garden from above ground and cannot get to it from underground. So I’ve begun to “basket” my flower garden, one 23x3 foot area at a time.

I'll let you know next year if this works. It's only been three weeks for my first 23-foot garden and only 2 days for my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.....so not much of a test so far.

Details, if you want them, of how the screened basket is created are below:

I've started refurbishing my flower garden areas along the fenceline with aluminum window screening (25 feet long roles, 4 feet wide). After removing all my plants from the area, I dig down about 4-6 inches into the ground in a 20 foot x 3 foot area, (dumping the dirt onto two tarps placed nearby in the yard) and then put 4 inch high bricks along the front of the garden area at ground level and brace 10foot long, 8 inch high boards along the back against the chainlink fencing at ground level (to keep the dirt from falling out through the chain-link into the parks-department land). I use anything I can find making a temporary barrier on the sides that matches the height of the front and back barriers, just to hold the screening up aboveground on the sides (since I’ll be removing the side barriers as I add additional 20ft long “cages” next to the old ones, at which point the screen sides will hold each other up.

Once I've laid the aluminum screening out into the “trenched” area, extending up about 2 to 6 inches against the bricks or wood, I then have a "screen-basketed" garden area 22-23 foot long, 12-14 inches deep in the back; sloping to 8-10 inches deep in the front. The slope allows me to see all the groundcovers from a sitting position across the lawn…nice extra. I take the ground down in the center another 4 inches if I'm planning on putting a bush like a potentilla or wygelia in that spot.

Then I put all the dirt in I took out, add additional dirt and topsoil to fill the additional 8-14 inches above-ground, and return the plants to their positions in that part of the garden. This gives the plants plenty of room for their roots to wander, and a basket the water can get through but the screening is too tight for the roots to bother pushing through – they just bend sideways and go elsewhere inside the basket….or so the neighbors say…..we’ll see…..

wow thats alot of work!!!

keep us posted how it works for you. Do you have any pictures of the process?

I lost 50 lilies in a single season, which all stopped when I started planting miniature daffodils (better for foliage disappearance around them). Before that I used Volblok/Permatil. Before that I used to spray them with thiram. Once I started using the daffodils, I found lilies I had not seen in years because not only did the voles stop eating them but the rabbits stopped nipping them.

It works on rabbits too. As an experiment, I put in two identical roses, and put a couple of WP Milner around one but not the other. One was untouched. The other was "pruned" by 50%.

Daffodils are poisonous, and these guys have a great sense of smell. They stay away. It's a cheap, decorative solution. And the daffs stay in the ground, so it is essentially permanent. It might be worth a try to see if it is successful for you.

Upnorth2, I salute you. A magnificent job by a very determined gardener.

Drobarr and DonnaMack:

Thanks for the ideas about Daffodils, DonnaM. And Drobarr; here is your update, though it isn't much of a one right now..(early fall).

I've screened in 120x3 feet of the fenceline along the backyard and put everything in those planting areas that I cherish (hostas, roses, iris, saxifraga, thyme, dianthus, hollyhocks, oriental lilies, arabis, mums, columbine, even potentilla and wygelia bushes). Hopefully the voles won't find a way into this area. I'll try to remember to let you all know next spring (around April?).

So far I really have nothing to report about the screened areas, as it is too early.

I've have found two vole mounds in the backyard this fall already, though not in the garden area yet. I used the Super-gasser, as it's called (50% sodium nitrate, 38% sulfur, 9% charcoal) on them. The voles seems to be staying out of the holes I shove these little dynamite-sticks into....and a nice side benefit is that our dog (who will dig to china trying to catch those little critters) doesn't like the smell the sticks make any more than the voles, so she also avoids them and my lawn has no more swimming pool-sized holes in it this fall.

Again, I'll try to keep you posted. You two have a lovely winter.

:^)

upnorth2

You too! A pox on the voles!!!!!

December 11, 2013 update on the voles:
Drobarr and DonnaMack; thought you two might want an update on the vole situation. I have one HUGE mound from an invader in the unprotected garden area, but have seen absoutely NO invasions on the screened-in section in that 120foot length of garden. So far, so good. No snow here yet so can still see what's going on. That may not last long.
The flag round is another story, however. I did not "Screen-basket" that area, but tried just putting an "underground screen fence" around it (screening going 2.5 feet down from the ground level all the way around. Thought that would keep the voles from burrowing into that area, as they'd just hit the screenig, turn their tunnels sideways, and go elsewhere. Well, that did NOT work. a vole somehow came up from underneath in the garden area and was burrowing around (made two mounds before 3 smoke sticks down the holes.... or cold weather ... stopped him from digging). So I will have to dig all that area out and "basket-screen" that one too, just as I have the 120foot length along the fence. Well, something to keep me busy in the spring, eh?
Drobarr, I'm sorry. I didn't even think to photograph the procedure of "basket screening" last year, but I'll try to remember to do that this next spring when I do the 120 feet of new garden being worked on going South from the back gate. If I actually remember, I'll try to get the photos to you.
Okay - nuff-said. I'll get back to you two next spring with any updates.
UpNorth2

This is really interesting. Do let us know what you find in the spring.

Are you sure the vole went UNDER the mesh that you dig in 2.5' deep?
Do you have especially loose soil that is easy for these critters to dig through?
Did you leave any mesh above the ground level?

I wonder if the invader went above the soil and 'hopped the fence'.

I posted an update on a forum on voles, but it hasn't shown up here, so I'm adding a short version of it here. It's been two years now. NO voles/moles/whatever in my meshed gardens, but the neighbors have a huge problem with them just the other side of my screened area. Diana: We do have loose (sandy) soil, and I leave mesh above the ground about 4 inches (fronted with those decorator bricks). I think the garden being raised 4-6 inches above the ground as well is what keeps em from getting in above-ground??? Drobarr: I'm sorry, but I don't have any photos of the process...wasn't thinking about documenting it when I was dooing it - just getting through it and getting it done. Since the 2013 posts, I've put in another 300 feet of mesh-caged garden, all have proven mole-free in an area surrunded by "mole/vole volcanoes". I DO pay some men to do the hard work for me now, though. Just too much for someone my age to do these days.
Happy "hunting", all of you. Sorry I took so long to update this. I'm not very consistent.

Thanks for the update.

I also saw my 'vole client' garden. Voles were so populous in the neighborhood they would run across the street in hordes and they were driving over them.
He lives in an area that is rather remote, and has a large yard backing up to open space. The hill is on bedrock, so if he digs as little as a few inches in some areas, a foot or so in others he finds solid rock. (Drainage issue, too, the rock directs subsurface water under the house. But back to the voles). He trenched his property line and used window screening down to bed rock all around. He has seen no voles or rattlesnakes inside the fence since.