Invasion!

Posted on 17 Oct, 2008 17 comments

Yesterday I proudly showed my visiting daughters my newly tidied, well pruned, replanted back garden; neat paved pathways, newly levelled – days of hard work.

When I looked out of my back window this morning I discovered that during the night I had been visited, silently and steathly. After several days of tidying, replanting, pruning, etc etc. someone had done their very best to undo all my hard work!

As I stared out of the window in dismay the earth moved! And continued to move for several minutes until a neat little stone-free mound of earth was deposited on top of one of my newly levelled paving slabs. When all movement stopped I ventured out and wandered carefully round the garden. Similar mounds were found all along one fence, under the rose arch where the mounds suddenly switched sides, continued across the garden, tilting a little bunch of cyclamens, right outside the back door and then back up the other path, about 12 neat little hillocks in all.

After about three years of peace THE MOLE WAS BACK!

I have now scooped up the mounds and placed the soil in a tub to use for potting up (trying to look on the positive side!) but I am now hoping that he will not start popping up again all over the lawn. Previously I tried windmills, mothballs, music etc etc to discourage him to move on but nothing worked. Eventually he just disappeared. What have I done to bring him back?

Comments

Chrispook

17 Oct, 2008

If you find any answers pleas post them. We ahve a whole family tunneling under our garden. They must spend all their time looking for each other.

Marguerite

17 Oct, 2008

What did you do wrong? Well, my best guess is that the mole likes to dig where some loose soil is, that is the easiest for it. You probably have started something, grubs and bugs etc. in fact all nice things moles like, might have started to move around, and moles probably have a good smell, as they have poor eyesight or none at all.
I can really understand your dismay after seeing all that good work destroyed. You poor thing! My sister in Holland had the same problem. I think they tried lots of things too, including setting traps. The Jack Russell sniffed them out ( not the traps, they came later ) and killed one. Now I can ask what they did eventually for you.
We don't have moles, in fact nothing much digs our garden, except for the bandicoot, which also has claws for digging, and it does make holes in my lawn and flower beds, but no tunnels, that must be really nasty.
Doe the mole like garlic I wonder? It deters a lot of insects and when they go, so might the mole. Good luck, I feel for you.

Gee19

17 Oct, 2008

Chloe is a cross between a rough coated dachshund (mother) and a jack russell (father) so both she and Mungo would chase anything small and furry. Chloe caught a mole when I first moved here and Mungo used to dig up the mole hills and spread the soil everywhere in a effort to get to the moles. Now Chloe is really too old to bother. She does run around and sniff a lot but that's about it!

I had never heard of a bandicoot but have looked them up on the internet so now I know! Very cute looking - like little kangaroos. Thanks Marguerite.

Terratoonie

17 Oct, 2008

The moles kept their distance when tortoises Josie, Jubilee and Junior were around.

But now, the Terrible Tortoise Trio is no longer a threat:
Two big 'uns are hibernating and Little 'Un is indoors.

All neighbourhood moles were sent a message by emole:
"THE COAST IS CLEAR ~ EMOLE ALL MOLES".

Some messages were sent by snailmole, so there's probably a second mole invasion on its way....backup troops from the other side of the trellis. A few of the moles could even afford to arrive by helicopter, having saved up enough air moles.

Best plan : put a spy camera in lady bowler. Hide the minicam inside a beetroot. Nobody will notice if she has extra lumps and bumps.

What a stroke of luck you cleaned your windows for better night time vision. Please upload photos from Beetroot Cam for further analysis.

Meanwhile it's advisable to be more careful in your choice of TV shows which attract the moles. Especially stop watching : Who Wants to be a Mole on Air :o)

Lyd

17 Oct, 2008

lol tt

Blodyn

17 Oct, 2008

Sorry to hear about your mole invasion.
Hope you can get rid of them.

Spritzhenry

17 Oct, 2008

What a pain for you! You must be so disappointed at the mess in your tidy garden. I believe there are devices to deter moles - maybe if you look in gardening magazines, Garden Centres (or try googling them) you might find them. Good luck.

Amy

18 Oct, 2008

We had a mole in our last garden , I was told that one of you should hit the ground very hard with the back of a spade while your partner shouted at the mole to go some where else , we felt a bit silly doing it but we didn,t see it again ~~~

Irish

18 Oct, 2008

lol Amy i would love to know what your neighbours though of you and hubby doing that .
ive seen gardens full of mole hills when im in scotland, but thank goodness its one thing i dont have to deal with over here, they never made it across the irish sea.

Sid

18 Oct, 2008

TT - PML - Air Moles indeed......

Reminds me of that Jasper Carrot sketch 'There's Only One Way to Kill a Mole', where he describes cellotaping a torch to the barrel of a 10-bore shotgun and sitting on a swivelling stool in the middle of his lawn at night. When he sees a mole, he fires the gun, falls backwards off the stool and shoots all the apples out of his tree. 'At the end the garden looked like the Somme'. Classic :-)