Re: Help-roots eaten.

In a message dated 7/3/00 12:59:35 AM Eastern Daylight Time, mtalt@clark.net 
writes:

<< 
 Agree with Dean - definitely sounds like voles.  In between cat
 populations, had about all my Hosta roots eaten - huge clumps would
 come right out of the ground.  Luckily, they are tough guys and
 regenerated.  A hunting cat is the best vole deterrent.  Lacking one,
 planting in wire cages works and backfilling around plants with sharp
 gravel helps as they aren't that keen on digging in rocks.  >>


My experience is the same as the others.  One more thing to do is to change 
the location of the sedums.  Voles (and in the fall squirrels) are attracted 
to recently disturbed soil.  If you really love those sedums, you can plant 
the roots between two bricks.  The sedums will do fine as they like good 
drainage.

Another trick is to plant the attractive plant in a black nursey pot slicing 
down the sides with knife after a year or two. If the plant is one you really 
love have more than one location.  Voles have nothing to do all day except 
hunt for food.  Of course, we should have nothing to do all day except police 
the garden.  Even the cats, I have three, are sick of the voles.

Poison bait is the best way to reduce (not remove) the population.  If you 
put the bait into a glass jar with a small neck and secure it from rolling 
around, the vole population will be thinned.  You can camouflage the jar with 
some gravel or mulch. Putting the bait into a jar will protect birds and 
cats.  The baits are now colored with bright colors so you do not lose them 
in the soil. 

I buy lilies and botanical tulips every year as the previous year's bulbs are 
nearly always pillaged.  Once I watched a vole tunnel under the soil.  You 
can see the movement from the top of the soil bed.  It zeroed in on a lily in 
the cold frame and rendered that cold frame useless for geophytes.  Sorry 
about "geophyte" but it is the catalog term currently used for plants with 
underground storage systems allowing dormancy.  Keeping up is a challenge!

Claire Peplowski
East Nassau, NY z4

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