Moles

If it's any consolation, the soil that moles throw up in their hills is a great growing medium. Scatter it on your herbaceous borders.

Apart from that I'm afraid I'm firmly in the camp that would rather have moles than manicured lawns.

I’d hardly call lots of molehills ‘inconvenient’, wwm. And I mean lots, not just one or two. Flies in the house are a similar ‘inconvience’ with whom I don’t choose to share my place.

If they don't like noise they'll hate Radio 1!
Or some wind chimes hung near their tunnels?

I remember when a local supermarket used to play classical music overnight to deter teenagers from loitering in the precinct.

You can get mole deterrents - basically a spike that goes into the ground and vibrates either by solar or battery power. It will scare them away without hurting them.

The soil from molehills is full of nutrients and very good for the garden and the moles aerate the soil so unless you have lots of molehills you might simply wish to leave them alone.

Happy to support wild life as long as it isn’t inconvenient eh?

We had six moles, it was apparently the breeding season. Keeping up with their activities was anything but a simple occupation. As I said, it resembled the Somme.

I do own my land and am happy to share it with some wildlife, but certainly not moles. As I live in a very rural area, there are plenty of fields and meadows for them to enjoy themselves in.

We have diversity on our land, need no moles turning everything topsy. At any time to the seasons we see all sort of animals about.

We feed our morning coffee grounds to their burrows, ask them to move along. In burrow openings by way of a tin open at both ends.

Germanshepherdsmum

Do you have a garden wwm? Has it ever been excavated by moles? I encourage and feed deer, hedgehogs, foxes and birds, all of which make a mess. No badgers nearby, thankfully. Moles are too destructive. And yes, it is my land so I decide what is welcome. In a very rural area such as this, moles have plenty of other opportunities.

Yes I do have a garden that is entirely organic and all wild life is welcome including moles, removing the “hills” is a simple enough occupation, using the earth to back fill any collapsed tunnels. You will find that it’s activity (and it is almost certainly only one mole) will lesson as summer approaches.

Although I own the deeds of the property, I do not “own” the land - I actually share it with the natural world from the tiniest microbes to the foxes and occasional badger.

I feel privileged to do so.

You can get a mole catcher to trap then and move them, vibrations do work, then they will go and dig the neighbours garden up.
We had a strange mole in our flower beds, burrowed everywhere but never had any molehills, puzzling.

BeverleyJB

A keen gardener friend of mine told me that moles hate vibration and noise. He used to part bury a glass bottle in the ground (with the top half or 2/3 above the ground) and put one of the children's plastic windmill toys in it. When the wind catches the windmill the sails going round creates vibration that passes through the tin into the ground. Cheap & cheerful and effective - also easy to move around.
Good luck!

I too have heard about vibration and noise.
Think the person I know used to mow the lawn around the holes a lot and scared them away that way.

We are going to try the windmills. Mr Mole is really making free with our garden and is now in the raised beds.

Do you have a garden wwm? Has it ever been excavated by moles? I encourage and feed deer, hedgehogs, foxes and birds, all of which make a mess. No badgers nearby, thankfully. Moles are too destructive. And yes, it is my land so I decide what is welcome. In a very rural area such as this, moles have plenty of other opportunities.

But I suspect you only encourage the “right” sort of wildlife.

Nothing that is messy or likely to dig, like foxes or badgers.

Well wwm, I’d like to see your reaction if your garden was excavated by a number of moles as ours was in the mating season. When I say the grass looked like The Somme I’m not kidding. I have other wildlife in my garden which I feed and encourage, but there’s acres of meadows behind us which the moles can dig up.

We tried some of the above methods with no success so we decided to do a mole watch. We sat in the garden and waited. My DH had a box with holes in it ready. When we saw activity he swiftly caught the mole as it came up.
It was shrieking and I felt sorry for it.
We drove it to a wild grassy area and let it go.
No more mole hills in our garden but we noticed on a walk that the mole had made himself another home.

I was told that moles were usually visitors only. If you make sure they are not too comfortable they will move on. The children's windmills worked for me.

Other species always suffer when they don’t “fit” with what the human species sees as their land etc.

My goodness this is exactly what has got us to the state we are in today.

The U.K. is bereft of diversity.

Germanshepherdsmum

You wouldn’t say that if you saw the extent of the destruction Wwm. We are by no means keepers of a perfect lawn and we have several wildlife areas, but moles are horrendously destructive. I know they look cute, but I have never before seen such utter devastation.

Your destruction is the moles way of life.

Read "Wind in the Willows" and leave them in peace.

I'm another who would not murder them! Why not try herding them out of the garden? Place several glass jars with windmills around the garden, leaving one side of the garden open (where you want them to go) then maybe they will move in that direction (away from the noise) and leave the garden. Then you can leave a few windmills over that side of the garden to remind them not to come back. Sounds like a plan. It may take days/weeks, not overnight. Just give them a chance to move out.

Don't moles have a series of tunnels and they just escape from one tunnel to another tunnel area?
(I learnt that from Animals of Farthing Wood, I think.)

We had mole hills all over the garden when we moved in. I researched on line- this method worked for us.
Scrape the molehill soil away - dig down to the tunnel. Put in the hosepipe and flood with water. When drained a little put in mothballs /garlic cloves/chopped lavender. Fill back up with soil. Within a few days all our moles left!! Theory being they don’t like wet tunnels or smelly stuff.
Previous home - tried expensive mole scarers( didn’t work) & then mole man who gassed them. Couldn’t do that again. Too sad to kill other creatures living outdoors.

Known as little gentlemen in velvet jackets!
I know the molehills look unsightly and can be dangerous, but moles themselves can greatly benefit the garden by eating all sorts of creatures and they aerate the soil as they tunnel.
However, if they’ve got to go, hope you can find a kind method.

Exactly . We have already lost a very special lilac.

You wouldn’t say that if you saw the extent of the destruction Wwm. We are by no means keepers of a perfect lawn and we have several wildlife areas, but moles are horrendously destructive. I know they look cute, but I have never before seen such utter devastation.