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Education > Garden Logue > Vole Damage
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Posted May 31, 2006 |
Every year I battle against voles. Before I began gardening I did not even know what a vole was. The best description is a cross between a mouse and a mole. There are about five inches long and covered in brownish fur. Voles are diggers. They make shallow burrows and feast on plant crowns, roots, and bulbs. Therein lies the source of our continual conflict.
My garden is filled with all sorts of bulbous plants. Lilies, tulips, crocuses, and scillas survive well in a naturalistic garden. Bulbs, like: daffodil, camass, spring beauty, colchicum, allium, etc., add spice to a garden. They provide vivid colors, cut-flowers, and a seasonal progression of interest. Unfortunately many of them are also fodder for the voles.
Besides food, my garden also provides shelter. Voles, like most prey animals, prefer cover. They avoid open ground where hawks or other predators can easily pick them off. The raised wooden beds in the garden are ideal living quarters for voles. They will even nest under perennials. In 2000 I found a brood living under a sprawling oregano plant. (It is often said that mint family members will discourage vermin; not always!) However, the same plants that bring the voles and rabbits also bring the bumblebees, butterflies, moths, and songbirds, so I usually accept the loss as a part of urban gardening.
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Microtus pennsylvanicus - Meadow Vole, (my arch nemesis) |
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In past winters we have suffered raids on our crocuses and tulips in the meadow garden and sunchokes in the vegetable bed. Heavy snows allow the voles to move freely throughout the garden without being exposed. In 2002 the persistent snow cover gave voles a couple of months to completely ravage our meadow garden of all its crocuses and most of the tulips. Allium (flowering onions) are supposed to deter vermin with their odor and foul taste. Wrong!
As if to scoff at me, the voles piled up the interplanted alliums on the surface as they greedily ate tulips and crocuses. When the snow finally melted, the little meadow bed was full of holes, each one with a pile of alliums by the entrance. Fortunately, the inedible daffodils and grape hyacinths carried on the spring show.
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"l" Shaped Raised Bed |
In the vegetable area sunchoke loss is not as big of an issue, because of the prodigious amounts that are produced annually. The only problem is the gross factor of bringing home a half-eaten tuber.
This year was different. The entire garden was revamped to be neater and more open. With the tall meadow changing to a creeping sedum plot there was less cover for the voles. Plus with our warm January there was very little snow. I expected that the voles would not cause much damage to the garden this winter. Wrong!!!
I began noticing the first signs at the beginning of this month [March '06]. My largest raised bed is shaped like a huge "L". It is mostly reserved for annual crops but a few hyacinths and species tulips are planted there as well. The "Little Princess" tulips (from our good friends Keith & Virginia) were placed in several sections of the raised bed. The leaves are very early so I am used to seeing many clumps appear with the winter aconite and Tommy crocus flowers. Instead there were only two clumps and several holes. On closer inspection the tips of the foliage and bulb tunics were scattered in and around the holes. |
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Those clumps had been there for years; and while I may have lost a bulb or two, it had never been that extensive. I took pictures, but left the two largest surviving stands because they were separate from the others, and I felt at this point in the season they would be safe. Last week another grouping of "Little Princess" was eaten. I quickly dug up the last clump and transplanted them to our roofdeck inside a tough barrel of sedum and basket-of-gold ( Aurinia ). I cursed the voles but figured that had done their worst. Wrong!!
The next day when I was clearing garden debris, I noticed that the burr sedge was not greening-up as quickly as normal. I figured it just needed to be cut back. I leave the burr sedge tufts up all winter in front of the okra area to prevent erosion (and because I like a living border). When I reached down to trim them up, the old leaves came up in my hand . The entire patch had been munched by voles. Apparently they lived in the tufts and ate the crowns. What had been a solid three feet of sedge edging is now reduced to a few sprigs.
Yesterday was the worst, though. It was the first bright Spring-like day of the year and my wife and I went to garden to plant our cool weather crops. Before we planted the lettuce and spinach seeds, we uncovered our Corsican hellebore ( Helleborus argutifolius ). Corsican hellebore is caulescent species, which means it blooms on last year's stems, unlike the popular hybrid hellebores, which bloom from the rootstock. Because the buds are on the stems in autumn, Corsican hellebore requires winter protection to bloom in spring when planted here. I usually use a mound of compost and juniper branches to protect the buds. This winter began so cold that I added some spruce branches as well. |
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![Leftover Lily Pieces]() ![Sedge Eaten from its Crown]() |
When we began to remove the branches , we saw signs of digging. By the time they were all removed the holes were obvious; and instead of tulip and crocus tunics, there were lily scales, trillium tips, and scilla stalks. I was outdone! This is the heart of my collection. Crocuses and tulips are easily replaced, but old stands of trilliums, lilies, and even toothworts are precious. How could this have happened?! While I was lamenting the wildflowers and collecting pieces of lily scales, the culprit himself popped his plump body out of the largest hole and scattered, provoking a scream from my wife. I gave chase with rage and a garden fork, but the bastard dashed under some stumps!
I went back to assess the damage: Lilium regale , Trillium cuneatum , Trillium grandiflorum , Erythronium albidum , Dentaria ( Cardamine ) lacianata , and even Scilla siberica . To add insult the vole piled up the wild onion bulbs ( Alllium canadense ) beside each of the holes. I am still in shock at the loss of some of my favorites. The prickly foliage of juniper and spruce was supposed to keep rodents away. WRONG!!! |
![Vole Tunnels]()
The vole's holes and crumbs under the hellebore house. In my left hand munched pieces of lilies and trilliums, in my right discarded allium bulbs |
The topper: the Corsican hellebore stems did not make it. Fortunately the rootstock is poisonous (the voles did not touch it) and hardy. It will re-sprout; but this years flowers are dead (perhaps it was too cold in December or too warm in January). This hellebore may have to be transplanted or given away, because I cannot risk giving shelter to voles in an area with such precious and tasty bulbous plants again.
The voles have scarred me this year. To continue to grow some of my favorites, this natural gardener may have to resort to placing chicken wire in the ground. But at this point I want more than prevention; I want payback. Is there a recipe for sunchoke and vole stew?
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