Moles v. Voles

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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From Cecil, on my post about my war on vermin. Thank you for the wisdom, C.

Most certainly voles, not moles — and the difference is more important than the consonant might suggest. Moles are your friends. They run around underground eating grubs that kill your plants, grubs that would later emerge as Japanese beetles or June bugs and eat your plants. Moles help aereate the soil and do NO DAMAGE to the plants we love to love. (They make tunnels in lawns which some idiots think are unsightly. If you are one of those idiots, think of them as earthen breasts, lumpy but functional.

Voles, on the other hand, are lovely only to voles (and the predators who depend on them for food: snakes and owls, principally). They eat plant parts, particularly roots. They use mole tunnels in order to access the good stuff and kill your ornamental plants — particularly those with deliciously tuberous roots. Yes, they have a distinct role to play in the ecosystem, as do we all, but they are on the other team when it comes to human gardening.

Whether this warrants skewering is, as ever, a personal philosophic journey. Since they leave MOST of my plants alone, my preference is to use the 1/4 inch mesh hardware cloth around the bulbs that matter to me, and not worry much about the rest of voledom. Also, this requires MUCH LESS hardware cloth than screening my compost, an economic plus.

But some people prefer to invade Iraq to suck up more oil while others prefer to conserve energy at home. Different strokes.