I had and have them and feel they cannot be eliminated in my garden. I can't have a cat, and can't/ refuse to use poisons with my dogs around. What I do is this- anything newly planted is either planted in a sunken nursery pot or a wire basket. With established hostas, I have dug moats around the root zone and filled with pea gravel..and added a lot of gravel to the top of the soil as well.... Anything to make digging difficult for them. Voles love wood mulch and soft, friable soil. Anytime I see a hole, I spread mole max around the area and in the hole, though I don't know if that stuff works. I tried traps and had zero luck with that.

Voles are a big problem here. Vole Block is sharp gravel that comes in a bag. I think it's baked shale. And expensive. Someone said make a sandwich of hosta roots when you plant. I put a thin layer of Vole Block, the hosta and another layer of Vole Block then soil.

I also use Mole Go which is granulated castor oil beads. The voles seem to really dislike it. I didn't use any on my daylily bed and they decimated about a third of my plants before I figured out what was happening.

Between the castor oil and the Vicks Vaporub for the deer my garden smells like my grandmothers medicine cabinet.
Kathy

Thanks coll, I appreciate your advice on newly and existing planted. I have to get this under control before I loose any more hosta.

I'll check out Mole Max, looks like caster bean is the main ingredient.

Been reading that crushed oyster shells (sharp edges) also work along the lines of pea gravel.

I remember that other members plant in wire baskets like you have suggested. I'm thinking of using 1/4" galvanized hardware cloth as a hole liner, much like the wire basket idea, when I replace my ruined hosta.

I'm going to rake back and eliminate the pine straw mulch tomorrow. It probably provides cover like wood mulch does.

Then, DH will tear out a mound of vinca minor with his backhoe. It is next to the bed that has been invaded. I planted the vinca some years ago to prevent erosion. I have a suspicion voles are living and breeding in that mess.

lol Kathy! I spread Vicks around this spring too, so I can definately relate :-)

Yes, wire baskets- like waste baskets from the dollar store, or rings made out of galvanized mesh...you can put a layer of gravel at the bottom of the ring. I've done that too. I have bought chicken grit at agway, which I think is crushed shells, to surround the plants. I find the gravel easier and cheaper to come by here. Bottom line is that you want to make that soil not so easy to burrow into. And yes, mulches and ground covers also make it easy for them to go undetected. I have all raised beds with rock wall edges....which also makes it easy for voles. They just slip into a little crevice in the border and they are already deep under the soil level at that point. So I am trying to work on fortifying all those entrance points with gravel or some kind of other barrier.

I use wire baskets, gravel from Home Depot and turkey grit from Agway (expensive). I dug a 100 ft trench 6-8 inches deep under the back fence and filled it with gravel. That seems to work to keep them out of my property. I am watching it and am ready to do more. Bernd

Mouse traps with a dab of peanut butter, I get quite a few.

When I first started out with hostas,I lost nearly all of my first hostas to voles. Now,they don't seem to be around in my garden. I think that marauding cat that hangs out around here may have helped in that effort. A couple of year ago,I saw a vole in my garden,and had my walking stick with me,and it was just below my feet,and I smacked it.That was the last vole I ever saw! Phil