Weather 2008

[Michael]

OMG Hans i hope all your plants survive (the buds were still emerging, or they were already unfolding?) Is there any chance of flowers this year? Its incredible how our most beloved plants are *precisely* those that pests preferentially choose (and i speak by myself!) This cannot be coincidence!

Jose welcome to the forum! I like your avatar a lot.

[Iturraran]

Jose welcome to the forum! I like your avatar a lot.

I like yours too!!! 

[Stephenb]

Hi Chloe!,

I don't know if gopher is the right name. They are rodents which live underground at all times, building extensive galleries and nests, eating huge quantities of roots, bulbs and whatever they find pallatable.
In our garden we have to deal with other serious 'pests' such as wildboars, rabbits and red deer, but I assure you these rodents are worst of all!

Sounds like Arvicola terrestris. This is the "water" vole or rat, an endangered species in the UK where it is much loved through the character "Ratty" in the children's book Wind in the Willows, but a feared garden pest in Europe, including here in Norway where it forms extensive burrows under the snow in winter eating everything in "sight". We've sent you our White-tailed Eagles. Perhaps it's time to start sending our surplus water voles....

[Maggi Young]

It is this creature, I am sure, which is the bane of the life of Janis Ruksans..... he has lost many a fine bulb to the predations of this animal ...I have heard him describe just what Stephen says... they travel under the snow and eat everything!

[Casalima]

Of course, how could I have forgotten! Northern Spain has been suffering from a plague of voles since last year.

Though, considering the terrain of the wonderful garden where José works, his ones might be considered mountain voles 

Chloë

[gote]

Arvicola terrestis is indeed a real menace. i have described the effects in a posting quite some time ago.
However, the very thin silver lining is that they live solitarily. One could not believe this, considering the vast amount of tunnels and destroyed bulbs and roots but it is a fact. Usually there is but one animal in the tunnels. Sometimes two.

They can be trapped fairly easily - I can describe how if there is interest.

I suffer with you Johannes. But I think that you had the smaller animals that burrow under the snow.
I get ithem every third year when they dig all unprotected corydalis corms.
The cross section of an Arvicola terrestis tunnel is 5cm or more. Field mice and their ilk have tunnels that are less than 4 cm.

Göte

[Blue-bellied Frog]

I think it will take a couple of days before a can see if pests have made damages in my flower beds.
More than 500Cm of snow this winter(10 Cm last night). 150 cm on ground today. 200 to 300 on flower beds.

[ChrisB]

Wow, Bernard, that is some snowfall you've had this year.  Last time I saw that much was when I got a photo from a friend who went out to Kitimat to live.  There will be no problem with moist ground once all that melts I can wager!  Hope it passes soon.  How on earth did you manage to keep the snow off the greenhouse?  Assume if you didn't, it would cave in under the weight.

[Blue-bellied Frog]

Bonjour Chris,
There will not be any problem when all that "white shit" will melt down. My land is on a sand terrace. At least 25 feet deep of sand. And a lot of ponds to recive that water. For the "winter-garage-greenhouse", it is easy to move the snow. It is more difficult for the house roof.
66 feet long x 35 feet wide (Cleaned 3 times this winter).

[Iturraran]

What an impressive snowfall!!! 
We usually get a couple of snowfalls every Winter (but not this one), and that's all. Temperatures rarely go below -4ºC, and when they do, just for a night or so.

Arvicola terrestris is indeed the name of the culprit  I cannot risk more bulbs and precious perennials in the open ground anymore 
Here we have a real plague and certainly they are not solitary beasts (which they were!). I'd be most interested and grateful to know how to fight against them, but cannot use chemicals as our garden is public and we are in a Natural Park. Cannot hire a pack of hungry cats either 

[gote]

I apologize for the delay in answering but I wanted to have a photo.

How to get rid of Arvicola terrestis (which I for sake of simplicity will call ’vole’):
There are many ‘remedies’ that do not work. When they seem to work, it is usually that the vole has eaten all and moved on to the neighbor’s garden.

Some merchants try to sell Fritillaria imperialis or big Alliums and say that they scare voles away. I had a mixed planting of Lilium and F. Imperialis. The voles sure left the Frits but destroyed every Lilium bulb.

Some people say that gas CO from an idling engine or CO2 from dry-ice works. Maybe it does sometimes but what happens is that the voles temporarily leave their tunnels in order to get fresh air. If one is quick, agile – and can guess where they will come up – one might be able to hit them with a shovel or similar implement. It has never worked for me. The tunnels can be 50m long so gas can hardly be efficient.

The vole burrows a vast system of tunnels with cashes of edibles and nursery rooms. This system has several exits which are short 20-60cm branches from the main tunnels and end in a small pile of soil. Moles also make piles but in obvious places like lawns. Voles put them in more discreet places such as under a shrub.

Voles dislike drafts. If the little pile is removed, they will block the exposed end of the tunnel within a couple of hours. They will then go on filling the branch all the way back to the main tunnel. This takes a few hours.

This means that if you have put down a trap in the branch and there is a slightest draft, they will ignore the bait and fill the trap with soil. It is absolutely necessary to put a bucket or similar vessel over the exposed hole with the trap and to seal the edges well with soil.

I start the vole hunt in the early morning by opening a couple of branch tunnels that seem fresh. I then inspect them at least every second hour. If the hole is still open in the afternoon it means that this part of the system is deserted.

If the hole is closed, I open the branch a little further so the trap can be situated close to the junction. I throw a couple of small morsels of bait as far as I can, set the trap and close carefully. Usually there is a dead vole in the trap within four hours. In say 25% of the cases the trap is full of soil and then I repeat the performance. When the vole is removed I leave the hole open.

It is important not to wait. If the hole is left over the night it is so packed with soil that it is very difficult to find it.

In say 80% of the cases the hole remains open for weeks – meaning that there was only one vole. Sometimes the hole is filled again and I take a second one – never a third. This is why I believe they are solitary animals.

Bait:
Potatoes but not all kinds. Blue Kongo is ignored. Carrot works well. Scorzonera and other roots are recommended and probably work but I have not tried them. I assume corms of iridiaceae would work very well but they are difficult to fix in traps.

Traps:
Oversize (15cm or so) mousetraps of the Tom&Jerry-kind work but the bucket is necessary. Today I use a German trap made by ‘Neudorf’ that works very well. It is its own “bucket” so I push it down flush with the tunnel and cover all with a thin layer of soil. The far one is cocked and the near one is tripped. As You see it signals by pushing up the spring through the soil when tripped – very useful! I find this trap superior. If you cannot find any, google or visit the homepage: http://www.neudorff.de/produkte/produkt-katalog/katalog/sugan-wuehlmausfalle.html
The photo shows one trap cocked and one tripped.

Smell – your own.
I try to keep everything as clean from human smell as possible. I wash my hands and then smear them with soil. Same with traps and to some extent bait.

Tallyhoooo!

Göte   

[Iturraran]

Göte,

EXCELLENT information!!!. I shall print and study it carefully... Thanks a zillion!!! 

[Lesley Cox]

Gote, you poor long-suffering man, having to go through all this. I shall never again complain about the occasional rabbit or possum, neither of which bothers the crocuses and other similar, or underground  things anyway.

[Iturraran]

You're SO LUCKY, Lesley!!! 

[gote]

Lesley.
I appreciate your kind thoughts.

Occasional possum ha ha! Lucky you!
Once I had had to shoo a moose (Alces alces) away. It was eating my Bergenias and refused to  budge until I was only 4m away. (OK I admit it was a moose calf not much bigger than a pony)
The glorified rats, that are called beavers, just had a willow that I had planted in a prominent position on the lake edge. They also eat my Nymphaeas 
Mice eat my crocus and corydalis corms unless i put them in cages.
The badgers (Meles meles) sometimes dig through the lawns looking for worms.
I have to have my goodies in a part of the garden where I have a 6' fence. Why? because of the roe deer. (Capreolus capreolus)
I have seen red deer (Cervus elaphus) 3 km away. They kill the newly planted Picea abies in my neighbour's forest.
I have also seen fallow deer (Dama dama) 
The wild boars took all potatoes for another neighbor last summer.
Sometimes the hares (Lepus europeus) take the bark off the fruit trees (and the voles take off the roots)
The squirrels always take all hazel nuts (i do not eat nuts. The squirrels can have them) However, they also take all the seeds of my Pinus cembra

There is a silver lining, however.
Last summer we did NOT have any bee swarm invading the chimney .
There is no sign of rabbit in my part of Sweden. 
Fortunately we have fox
Sometimes lynx,
The wolf unfortunately only passes through
The stray cats hopefully diminish the number of small rodents  but I assume they take the occasional bird
The pine marten (martes martes) is also helpful  but unfortunately they dislike the foxes.
I wish the minks (Mustela vison) would take the voles instead of eradicating the coots (Fulica atra)

I garden in a ZOO !!!

Göte