'Anti-mole' bulbs....

[Mozman]

After a couple of years struggling with what seemed to be a vast army of moles in our meadow and garden ...we used various things things to persuade the blighters to decamp. (They did...but only it seemed to a fresh area of our ground.)

In the end Guy the Gardener told us the taupe would have to be ex-taupe or his mover wouldn't be able to cope. So he did his thing...set traps and next day the little perishers were presented to us as exhibit A and B. It was astounding to think that just two small animals could cause such devastation.

Now I know some will wince at this course of action...but it was a last resort. The damage was extensive and was eroding large areas of ground and had killed a couple of young trees....not to mention making it impossible to get out of our grass drive when it got wet. They had also begun excavating the gravel area of our garden and the flower borders.

Now the odd molehill is one thing....and I am not precious about a manicured meadow....but the line has to be drawn somewhere. Hopefully now the problem is going to subside for at least a while.

I had a fruit plantsmans catalogue delivered last week and in it they were selling bags of plant bulbs that had an aroma unpleasant to moles and small rodents. I thought it may be a good idea to get some now in order to stave off any new colonization. Not only that,anything that would stop mice eating my new beetroot tops etc would be welcome.

Has anyone tried these....and if so how effective are they?

[la bezarderie]

At the moment I'm finding myself singing "I fought the moles and the moles won" everytime I survey lawn, borders and field. You've made up my mind, I'm off to Point Vert tomorrow for traps, no more Mrs. Nice Person.

[Department71]

There was a thread a year or so ago about a certain plant that the little blighters can't stand, we were interested but couldn't plant them as we have clay soil and it seems the plant in question won't survive in that type of soil.And no sorry can't remember the name of the plant and can't find the thread but it was under the gerdening section and the title was about moles.

Steve

[nimportequoi]

The only thing we found that worked on arrival on France is a rather horrible device which you place in a mole hill, it then explodes underground when the mole approaches and must send shock waves around undergroud as for the last 3 years our 0,5hectare lawn has been molehill free. The only problem is that it is quite expensive and my other half nearly had his head blown off when it went off accidentally once when he was checking it, so be careful if children and animals are around. It is very effective though - we bought ours at the local Point Vert.

[Mozman]

What I find quite astounding is that they are so small in comparison with the wreckage they produce. I mean I know they aren't big animals....so by the same token I thought we must have whole platoons of them. Nope, guy reckoned we had two, three at most.

He caught two....so maybe we have a rogue mole who is digging huge tunnels as we speak in order to try and locate has mate!

We have clay soil unfortunately....not very clay-ey....but going that way. But I am still inclined to try.

The exploding device sounds pretty fearsome. Maybe a handful of Bangers in each run would do the trick!

[pete&hilary]

hi We had moles in our last place in Normandy.

I tried traps, Didnt work  so by chance one morning i happen to see a mole hole forming so crept up to it and attacked it with my spade,first mole down, So just by watching early morning and evening over the next couple off weeks managed to get three more of the pests there was still one left i think but the ground by then was to hard for the mole to make any new runs.