VELVET UNDERGROUND By Pippa Greenwood T
hey may be known as ‘velvet coated gentlemen’, but believe me if you have a problem with moles in your garden, it is highly unlikely that you will be inclined to call them anything quite so polite! For
years I thought people were over-reacting when moles appeared, but having now come across them in great numbers in my own garden, I too have started to have some rather unfriendly thoughts. So what can you do if all of a sudden your lawn becomes decorated with mounds of finely turned soil, or if plants in your beds and borders suddenly start to disappear beneath soil level as subsidence occurs within the flowerbed, or an entire row of vegetables is excavated from below?
Moles can do a lot of damage to a lawn, largely because that fine soil acts as an excellent seedbed for weeds and is also inclined to make the surface of the lawn rather slippery. If their runs go beneath your lawn or, worse still, beneath flowers in a flowerbed or vegetable plants in your vegetable plot or allotment, then because they tunnel quite close to or
in amongst the plant roots, they can occasionally cause the plants to suffer from drought because the soil is no longer in contact with the roots. Often, when the tunnels collapse subsidence occurs, every- thing starts to topple inwards, and plants can literally fall over.
Moles can sometimes be deterred by high-pitched sounds or vibrations. To this end you could try inserting children’s windmills over the mole infested areas, as the vibration that passes down these into the soil is often said to send moles scampering away. It is an inexpensive and relatively decorative solution AND I’ve seen gardens where it really does seem to work. Similarly, you can try plunging glass bottles into the soil so that just the neck is protruding. As the wind whistles over the mouth of the bottle the noise and vibrations created may also discourage moles.
Very smelly substances can work against moles. It is possible to buy mole smokes which seem to work, in the short term at least. These are rather like
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