Re: deterring animals- subject line change

In a message dated 10/7/04 12:25:32 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
melauter@EARTHLINK.NET writes:


<<Right on target, Claire.  Have you or anyone on this list tried that new
product called "VoleBlock?" >>>

Hello Margaret, it has been a long time on the garden lists.  Do you have an
early winter beginning?  If you use "Voleblock" and like it post it for us.
I just lose bulbs all the time and expect to do so.  I replant crocus, botanic
tulips and a few alliums every fall.  I don't expect them to stay with us
much.  No more Lilium here.  Lancifolium or tiger lilies grow faster thant the
voles can find them so they are sort of native here.  There is one huge clump of
Lilium henryi here never attacked by voles. Maybe henryi has some natural
deterrent.

I have tried the cages with deep frost of zone 4 sending them upward and out
of soil each spring.  Also they are nasty to your fingers.  Once I planted a
bunch of lilies in holes with rocks and gravel under, over and around them.
They are all gone now.  I have also used the planting bags which look like onion
sacks from the market. That lasted the longest but you eventually destroy
them yourself working in the garden and cultivating holes in them unless you have
X-ray vision and can see underground.  Any kind of barrier lasts as long as
the bulb will stay within it.  An English book that I have recommends glass
shards around the bulbs which I don't think I will try.

Someone always recommends a cat. Currently, we have four cats.  They cannot
be induced, no matter how much I lecture them,  to focus on voles.  A cat preys
on many small animals and ours bring home a variety with voles in there once
in while.  One young one consistently puts snakes in the office so that is a
thoughtful idea but it just does not save hardy bulbs.  Maybe, a whole army of
cats.  We encourage the snakes and are seeing more of them in the last few
years.

There is a famed painting, cannot remember the artist, much like "The
Gleaners" which has a group of farm workers, men, women and children, walking across
a nostalgic farm field scene.  I discovered these people are beaters and they
are beating small animals, rabbits and voles from farm fields.  An ancient way
to deal with voles.  I don't know why there are so many now.  I haven't read
any study on this but it is probably true that they will breed more freely
where there is more food.  There is some information on loss of product in
hayfields do to large vole populations.  That is something I never thought about or
heard farmers discuss.  There is a lot of fascinating information on voles
online.

Voles and deer abound on our land and we don't put up a fight anymore.  It
sort of takes the joy out of gardening to be out there angry with them all the
time.  They eat parts of clumped plants as hosta but eat 100% of any bulb.

Claire Peplowski
NYS zone 4
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