Vole!

[Tarzanus]

I have found several shoots around my Pseudosasa japonica 'tsutsumiana' dissappear over night. After that I found a maze of tunnels below the whole clump and started using trap to finally get the intruder. After a couple of days and several older culms and new shoots later, I did catch something, a mole. I thought that vole that did that damage dissappeaed because it seemed the damage stopped. After another couple of days, old culms started to die off in large numbers. Whole stems were taken into the ground, new shoots, gone, rhizomes gone, roots nibbled... By now half of the 2 year old clump is practically gone! I checked 5 places below the clump and I found enormous underground hallway just below the plant. all roots and rhizomes that went below it are gone. When making mentioned 5 small holes, I ended up with 6 tiny divisions of freshly nibbled rhizome parts and culms. Some have roots, hopefully they make it and with a lot of luck rhizome will also start growing from at least one of buds that could emerge on lower parts of the culm.

I'm not sure what to do now. It looks like this plant got hit really hard. It started shooting like crazy, but it lost nearly everything new and most of the old growth. I also find almost 3m long rhizome (the plant is small and I have no idea how it could run that far away - perhaps it knew about voles in the neighborhood ) into not desired direction over the pathway and that runner made it with a shoot. Perhaps if everything else fails, I'll be able to get fresh division out of there. Damn vermin!

Any ideas about how to effectively exterminate it (them)?

[dependable]

In lawns I maintain I use a product called 'mole scram'. There are a few similar brands of this available here. It is basically castor oil in an inert substance to help spread it around. They get it on their fur, lick it, get ill and leave the area. Works most of the time.

[stevelau1911]

In lawns I maintain I use a product called 'mole scram'. There are a few similar brands of this available here. It is basically castor oil in an inert substance to help spread it around. They get it on their fur, lick it, get ill and leave the area. Works most of the time.

That brand definitely works.

This year, I am using deer & rabbit scram on random plantings, and it seems pretty clear that a little bit of it sprinkled onto the foliage of a plant keeps the animals away. It's supposed to work for 1 month however plants grow continually so I intend to sprinkle them every 2-3 weeks. They simply haven't even come by this year as it appears to really bother them much better than the spray on repellants.

The typical sprays that you get at the gardening center will usually prevent the sprayed foliage from getting eaten, but it doesn't protect surrounding foliage. The deer scram seems to discourage them from even coming within the general area so I don't even have to make sure every leaf gets sprinkled. I usually water the plants first so when I sprinkle the stuff, it will stick and the smell can get absorbed into the plants.