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Moles and voles can wreck havoc on your lawn and garden. How can you tell their damage apart and how can you control them...or can you? Read on and follow the links to learn more. Moles can be a very big problem for the homeowner. Their tunneling causes unsightly ridges in lawns and they can damage the root system of turf causing the raised areas of grass to dry out and die. Their tunneling may uproot plants and flowers causing plant damage and death. Moles actively feed day and night all year long. They have the ability to tunnel up to 100 feet in a single day (about 15 feet per hour)! Voles are rodents and belong to the same family as rats and mice. They vary in size from 3 to 5 inches from nose to tail and have stouter bodies and shorter tails than mice. Meadow voles live above ground and pine voles live underground. Voles may be active both day and night. They spend most of their time in tunnel systems one to a few inches below the ground. Voles eat grasses, roots, tubers and other plant material, as well as seeds, fruits, bark and underground fungi.
Moles don’t eat plants — only earthworms and grubs. However, they create raised tunnels that are unsightly and can damage lawns. extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/moles-lawns Voles eat lots of plant material — generally underground parts, like roots and bulbs; they don’t tunnel, but they follow the same above ground path so often that they make distinctive runway-like trails in lawns. extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/voles Link to helpful PDF regarding dealing with nuisance wildlife:
extension.umd.edu/sites/extension.umd.edu/files/_docs/programs/hgic/HGIC_Pubs/wildlife/HG90 Dealing with Nuisance Wildlife_2018.pdf |
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