can't help you...I got a border collie that kills moles, though.

I thought moles ate bugs and worms, not plants.
Voles aren't a problem for me on ten acres....as far as I know.
My cat catches a few around the garden near the house.
Mike

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i283/Botann/034.jpg

Moles are our friends in the garden. Gophers and voles will dig as deep as they need to get to your roots or they will pile up soil around the plant and go over the top edge of the basket. If the plants survive than, then when the wire rusts the pests will finish them off.

I agree with the idea that moles are our friends in the garden, but my enemy in the lawn. Consequently, I have a very small lawn considering I garden on ten acres.

Who am I kidding? I'd have a small lawn even if I had no moles. My wife nags me about wanting more lawn. Wouldn't you know it? I keep promising her..............;-)
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i283/Botann/Fall%202014%20and%20Winter/IMG_3297.jpg

Mike

Mike, looks like a polka-dot lawn! but friends with moles that eat my earthworms? Never!

My neighbor with ten acres has been trapping moles for 40 years. He gets an average of two a week. When he started he got two a week. Moles are territorial and as soon as one is gone, another moves in. The futility in trapping them in my situation is obvious. I just adjust and live with them by having a small lawn.
There's plenty of earthworms here. I spread an average of 20 cubic yards of woodchips a month and have for over twenty years. It's a perfect environment for worms. If it were up to me, I'd have no lawn at all, just wide, raised paths.
Mike
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i283/Botann/My%20favorite%20pics/2171847130036511179.jpg

Mike, I attended a Seattle Tilth gardening class, I think it was called, "Honey, I shrunk the lawn". then I sheet mulched our entire yard. But, my lot size is much smaller than yours and my conifers are still babies. As an aside, do you wear a respirator when spreading the wood chips?

Before I retired as a Landscape Contractor, I did a lot of garden makeovers. I shrunk a lot of lawns! Most people have too much grass in relation to the garden beds. They equate the more plants you have, the more work you have to do so they end up with large lawns. Not true, if you know what you're doing. That's the fun part...learning.
Mike...looking at possible water restrictions this summer due to lack of snow in the Cascades.

I'm still learning...my aching back. I expect our water pricing to start to get more punitive with increasing water usage to encourage conservation. Thank goodness conifers and rhodies aren't too thirsty here.

On our ten acres we have to plant anything with tap roots or big roots including all members of the rosa family (roses, apples, quince etc), all Japanese maples (they don't bother the big leaf maple), ---basically everything except boxwood and hydrangea-- in gopher cages. They adore artichokes. Because we have to have so many cages we gave up making them ourselves and buy them on line. Many, many. But it is my understanding that moles, which we also have identified from trapping, are carnivores and are going after the grubs and worms in your lawn and garden, while gophers (larger and stronger) are herbivores and are the ones which eat your roots. We are infested with both, but gophers are the devils. The only saving grace is that they do not seem to go over the top of the cages, despite warnings from others.

Julieotoole, where are you that you have gophers?
I was wondering how far south I'd have to go to encounter them?
Mike

I don't have any lawn but moles are exasperating in my shrub borders, too. Their tunneling pushes plants up out of place, pops young plants right out of the ground, they undermine stepping stones, change the grade of the ground, push dirt up all over paths. Last year I heard a racket outside and one had tried to go up a downspout and gotten stuck in it. It was a very large mole! But at the same time, I guess they are eating grubs that would be hurting my plants. How to live with them peacefully is the problem. Do the tunnels that they make cause roots to dry out since they end up hanging in air instead of nestled into the soil?

Mike, pocket gophers are common in most of western Washington. I never knew about these critters until I moved from the city to the Kitsap area and my cat figured out he was a hunter :-) And boy, is he good at it!! Just wish he wouldn't bring the bodies indoors for me to admire (we won't even discuss the ones still alive that I have to chase down!). Identification of the remains determined that his catch is pretty equally divided between shrews and pocket gophers. In summer, he sometimes get several a day.

Pocket gophers are not all that big - about 6-8' long - and with a short, almost stubby tail. And impressive front teeth. As many as he catches, you would think I wouldn't have any plants left in my garden but I have yet to see any damage. Gopher tunnels are completely underground and not visible on the surface. They do make mounds, but they are more like a half circle or cresent than the volcano-shaped mounds moles produce.

pocket gophers