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Gardening tip from my barber


woolybanana
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Had my annual shear today (madame says I look bullet headed!); asked the barber what he did with the old hair - cushions? No, he bagged it up gave to it people to chase the 'tops' which is dialect for 'topes' (moles). Apparently if stuffed down a mole tunnel they will go away as they do not like the smell or something. Anybody ever heard or tried this? Does it work?

Forgot to ask him if lady's or gentlemen's hair was better, blonde, brunette.
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We had a problem with deer eating our rosebuds and someone said put human hair around the roses.

I asked my hairdresser and she wouldn't give me any.

I heard that human urine deters wolves, so it might be better to try that .

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We used to have a problem with deer eating the new tops of roses and the sweetcorn I grew. They were a big problem in the village, where they came down in the evenings.

One elderly neighbour took to sitting up at night in his garden overlooking the road with a shotgun - I never heard him shoot anything though.

Another neighbour, a chemistry teacher, made some sort of explosives in tin cans - they made a very loud noise, but that didn't stop the deer.

I tried hair, but that was a failure for me too; they would run up to the gate on our drive, jump over it and then ignore the hair around the roses and sweetcorn and eat their fill.

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Moles (taupes) have poor eyesight - you don't need to be able to see in an underground run with no light.

Their other senses take precedence and they rely on detecting vibration and scent.

I have not heard of human hair working (maybe it depends on the brand of hairspay/gel used :-) ) but I have used calcium carbide - which releases acetylene gas in contact with moisture. The gas released (which is rather impure) stinks vaguely of garlic and it seems to work up to a point.

I have heard of other that have used dog poo and claim some success.

I think the problem with any of these smelly cures is that they work locally to where they are applied and the mole just digs in the opposite direction. If this is next door, all well and good, but if this is towards your crown bowls lawn then watch out.
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I have had my neighbours make their dogs sh1t on my doorstep and one of them even laid a cable in my trailer as a leaving present but if I were close to blind and lived underground I would not be happy with you lot putting dog poo or chemicals in my doorway.

 

Leave the poor moles alone, I shared my place with a campagnol for many years, he was a little messy when he came up in my garage but still a totally adorable creature, his habitat gradually got reduced as Iblock paved my back yard and then the car park, I waited till I had seen no trace of him in the garage for a couple of years before concreting the parts of the floor which were terre battu and he would come up from.

 

I really hope he moved on to a better habitat and that I did not put an end to his days.

 

Its easy for me to be a liberal mole defender these days as I have no lawns or garden in France!

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Aaahhh!

I remember hearing that putting a child's plastic windmill down the mole hole worked - apparently the noise of it spinning round makes them want to be elsewhere.

I've only once seen a mole, on a campsite in the New Forest; I suddenly saw the ground moving horizontally and then up he popped, a gentleman in black velvet.
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We have had problems with mole hills appearing in our lawn (grassed area!).

Local advice has included 1. putting pieces of glass in the mole runs and 2. blowing the bu**ers up with these commercial kits.

For the last couple of years we have not had a problem!

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Got this idea from Gardeners' World years ago and solved our mole problem with 6ft hazel twigs poked in the ground in various places which seemed to do the trick - wind vibrating the twigs and also smaller twigs with plastic perrier type bottles dropped over each twig which the wind then rattles the bottle vibrating the twig in the mole run and again this seemed to work - some other poor b***er must have got the mole but at least it wasn't murder on our part!

Mrs KG
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fePU5CIHpas

The best way to stop moles diggging in yer garden is to hide their shovels [I][:-))]

In fact if you leave them alone they will dig their run. When that's finished they stop digging and just patrol the tunnels and dig no more. Whe they have young and they become adults the parents will drive them away and they will have to go somewhere else. Probably not in your garden and then they will start their own tunnel complex.

Use the soil in your plant pots. It's all good stuff. Good 'ere init [8-|]

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