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Re: Rabbits or Voles

Thanks Jim....have you tried watering them in?...In other words , does
watering them as you plant help any?  Other suggestions point to skunks or
even raccoons, but the holes are no wider than 2 or 3 of my
fingers....Don't think a raccoon could be that precise and probably neither
could a skunk....thanks again


                                                                  
 (Embedded                                                        
 image moved   James MacDonald <jmacdon @ access.digex.net>       
 to file:      08/17/98 10:25 AM                                  
 pic25752.pcx)                                                    
                                                                  



Please respond to prairie@mallorn.com

To:   prairie @ mallorn.com
cc:    (bcc: Alan Rider)
Subject:  Re: Rabbits or Voles




At 08:47 AM 7/28/98 -0500, you wrote:
>I have transplanted a number of wildflowers and find that within a couple
>of days (sometimes overnite) they are dug up and dead.  At first I thought
>it was rabbits, but now I am not so sure.  I now wonder if my problem is
>voles, which I have plenty in the area.
>Can anyone confirm and/or comment?
>Any suggestions?
>
>Area is in Central ILLinois.

I used to have this problem many times myself here in south central
Wisconsin.  I would plant out the little seeding guys in my prairie
restoration and over the next few days I would discover they had been dug
back up.

I have no idea what is doing this but I have managed to find a solution
that works for me.  Over the years I noticed that the nighttime diggers
seemed much more interested in the loose soil than they did in the plants.
Many times I would discover that the entire planting had been dug up and
the seedlings would be intact mixed in with the soil thrown out on the
ground.  I suspected that whoever was doing it was looking through the
loose soil for something they thought one of their pals had just buried.

In my case at least the problem was solved by very firmly packing down the
surface of all the soil in the planting.  This is not what they teach you
about transplanting seedlings.  The theory is that the seedlings do better
in loose soil, but not if they are immediately dug back up.  I leave the
sub-soil loose but the surface has to be very firm.  Since I started
packing the entire surface the digging has completely stopped.

Jim MacDonald


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