We have a six-year-old rose garden. We had NO voles until last year; and THIS YEAR they are worse. They tunnel through the rose beds, and this year they have tunneled through the lawn, leaving stripes and patches of dead grass. They haven’t damaged the roses (yet?), but they DO make the beds mounded and squishy, making it difficult to walk through the rose garden… especially for someone with slight balance issues.
What are the suggestions to deal with these little varmits? I’ve never even SEEN one, but want to eliminate them all. What is reccoed to get rid of them?
Moles seem to be your culprit, they don’t eat plant roots, they are after the grubs, which are the larvae of June and Japanese Beetles if you live in the east side of the country or other beetle species in the west. When you eliminate the grubs the moles will look elsewhere for their food.
There are several methods of eliminating the grubs. Success varies depending on the type of soil, for example, Milky Spore disease works better in sandy type soils, not as effective in clay type soils. Granular Imidacloprid works well, but timing the application is critical. A newer, but pricey, Bacillus thuringiensis subsp gallerias, marketed as beetleJus!, BeetleGone!.tic, and GrubGone! control only beetles and their grubs. I want to try beetleJus! next June to control the Japanese beetles in my region. The BeetleGone! website has lifecycle information which is important for application timing.
Voles eat roots and are much more difficult to control, usually involving many applications of a rodenticide to control them. They reproduce quickly which in the reason they are hard to eliminate.