How to recognize vole activity in your garden.
Voles in yard signs.
A vole s burrow can be identified by holes found in lawns or around the base of trees.
A positive apple sign test will indicate where to place a vole control bait station system to gain control of the area.
Look for irregular paths of clipped and trampled grass or soil.
Moles naturally aerate soil and eat the larvae of destructive insects.
Voles like dense heavy vegetative cover weeds and meadows because it provides them with protection from predators and provides nesting material.
The runways may be about one to two inches wide.
Recognizing the surface runways created by voles will be the best indication of vole presence in your yard.
Make your yard inhospitable to voles.
If you already have voles in your yard this type of barrier can keep them out of your flower gardens.
An underground barrier around the perimeter of your yard can do just that.
Small tunnel entrances runways and burrows in your yard ranging from 1 2 wide.
Once you have all the information you need you can develop a targeted strategy toward preventing further damage and removing them from your yard altogether.
The grass immediately surrounding the hole will be very short.
Vole runways are on the top of the soil created in the grass.
The track will be 1 2.
Signs of voles in your garden may include runways on the surface of the ground on in your lawn.
You have to pinpoint the location of your voles to be most effective with your repellent methods.
Since voles are not the only animal pests responsible for runways in lawn and garden areas they are often confused with other pests you d like to get rid of namely moles because both moles and voles are rarely seen it makes more sense to base identification on the signs they leave behind rather than on how the animals look.
The best way to find these pesky creatures is by looking for signs of vole damage.
However in your yard they ll also destroy plant roots bulbs and grass.
Signs of vole damage.
Bury 1 4 inch hardware cloth in an 18 inch trench and tilt the bottom 4 inches at a 90 degree angle away from the yard to discourage animals from tunneling underneath it.
Prevention is very important to keep vole numbers down.
As they spend a lot of time in their subterranean burrows infestations of voles in the yard tend to go unnoticed until plants begin dying which is the result of the pests consuming their root systems and a sign that a large number of the animals are present.
Cut back brush mow weed and create a clean space.
Common signs of vole damage include.
Learn to verify signs of voles and how to identify hot spots of vole activity with the apple sign test.
Voles are often the culprit when there is damage to plants and lawns.
Vole droppings and vegetation debris within surface runways.
Voles like to keep these often used runways clear and will keep the grass or other vegetation clipped close to the ground.
