Ack!! Put that plant in a bucket of water until it grows some roots!....Then stand out in your yard and call "hooo! Hooo!...whoo cooks for youooooo" And tell them that while you won't cook a vole....they are welcom to all they can eat!!
Nasty rodents!
Linda c

Probably is the skunks. They love to eat roots. When I used to grow corn, they would go right down the rows, pulling up the seedlings and eating the roots. But what can you do? You can't shoot them or risk getting stinky for weeks. Good luck. I finally took a bucket of dried corn and put down at the end of the field and kept it full, so they'd eat that and leave my plants alone, but that's not a perfect solution either. It's too high maintenance.

Lainey

the chipmunks are running rampant here....

dirty rotten little diggers,,,

jill

I have much bigger holes....ground hog seems to like hosta leaves too!

I use to love shootn ground hogs wit my 22 mmmmmm

Oh my gosh...another one. This time it is Hosta Blue Arrow. The whole thing was not dug up yet, however 1/2 the roots and at least the crown under one eye...GONE! This definitely just happened last night. The eye with the missing crown hasn't even had time to wilt. While I know I have vole holes, I do not think this is vole damage...I think botanybabe's suggestion that it is a skunk is the likely answer. This cannot continue...

What should I do? Does anyone have a bear trap?

I don't know if it works with skunks, but I bought some Bobcat urine to use to repel possums, squirrels, cats, dogs, and other varmints. It works pretty well, but stinks to high heaven (but not as bad as a skunk) and you have to replace it after it rains. I put it on cotton balls which I then placed at strategic places in the garden.

OR, get your neighbor to put up a hen house. Skunks much prefer hens to hostas.

Lainey

Hi Buff,

M-A here. I would go with the deterents. The coyote urine stuff works - but kind of expensive. I had a big rabbit problem and found that Liquid Fence works really well, I don't know about critters digging roots though, you would have to spray it near the ground. One time, a rabbit ripped off the leaves and ate only the petioles, because the spray didn't reach them! Good luck, these animal problems can be so annoying, considering what we put into our gardens. MAinMA

Hey Buff, let me know if you need a new Blue Arrow... I have extras! And I second the urine suggestion. Best $20 I spent this year (and you know how much I spent last weekend at First Look!) ;o)I got almost all 40 new ones in the ground. Independence doesn't have a home yet and Blue Cadet is going to my sister's house.

It is possible to trap a skunk, but obviously tricky.
The groundhog-size have-a-heart trap would work but practice with it to figure out how to open it quickly!

Not sure what to bait it with but *apparently* after you catch the skunk, approach the trap with an old blanket or sheet and throw it over the trap. Skunks won't spray themselves in such close quarters. Relocate (probably on the back of a pickup truck :) and release - carefully.
Of course, there are wildlife experts who will do this for you, for a fee.

I've had a skunk in my yard for years and we got along. It never dug up any plants (the lawn to get the grubs is another issuee...).
If your damage is caused by a skunk, it might just the THIS PARTICULAR skunk that has a thing for hosta roots and any future skunk that might move in won't be such a connoisseur.

oh my gosh, i should have read this before i posted a separate topic (above). the same is happening to me. i can't imagine what is doing it. i'm positive it isn't a skunk or rabbit because i've never seen eithre of those in the yard. however it's easy for me to blame moles because they are running RAMPANT everywhere in the yard- so it's easy to blame them for everything ;)
anyway if you want to check my post too, people might (hopefully!) offer some solutions in there too! good luck! :P

i'm considering digging up my hostas and surrounding the roots with something. some kind of metal screening, or else a plastic container- i'm just not sure yet.