OMG tonight I had a deceased vole in my kitchen. Either the dogs or the cats brought it in. I applaud them for assisting in the fight against the voles through the power of nature’s predator and prey scenario but I’m not sure the kitchen floor is the place to dump the bodies.
The Battle Rages On
The epic battle of human and hosta versus vole continued this morning with my waking to find two more hosta destroyed. I think I am losing about one or two a week at this point. I can’t protect them fast enough and the voles are now walking right through the repellant to get to the hosta. Maybe that’s a good sign? Maybe they are desperate?
Or maybe they are mutant voles for which there is no defense!!!
Today’s destruction includes a Dream Weaver – oh the horror. Do you know how slow this hosta is? Let me tell you, it’s a S L O W W W grower and the voles knocked it back several seasons. The second victim was one of three Diamond Tiara. Come to think of it, I can only remember two of them so maybe the third was actually a winter victim?? I have to see if I can remember where I put that third one. Hmmm.
Dream Weaver sans roots:
Diamond Tiara:
Interestingly I also dug up a hosta right next to this one because I found a vole hole right at its crown. The crown was still there and several big fat roots came out from it BUT there was virtually no smaller, capillary/feeder root system! I think that winter vole feeding reduced the roots dramatically and it was only able to grow new roots once spring began. It explains why many of my hosta did not increase in size from last year.
Battle Royale
The battle is on, voles! Although I had decided I could not purchase any more hosta until I had protected all of my existing (and rapidly diminishing from vole attack) plants I COULD NOT RESIST!!! Yes, you heard it here first, a hosta addict BROKE DOWN and ordered a plant. Ok, TWO plants but who’s counting? Hey, it did take until the second week in June – and I am not going to count those filler plants I ordered for the front yard… seriously, they don’t count – so I figure I’m doing pretty good. Right?
So what is this girl doing spending eighty bucks on a few … ok, TWO plants when she has a vole infestation that is insanely out of control? I don’t know. She’s crazy. But seriously, these are two FINE plants that will be arriving this week so it’s time to break out the big guns.
Today I hauled blocks around in 90 degree weather interspersed with rain showers (the southern blight was in HEAVEN – sing it like Jon Stewart for the full effect) to build a raised bed for the largest of the two – Empress Wu. My Pearl S. Buck phase had nothing to do with it. The sheer size of this plant had EVERYTHING to do with it.
The blocks I used to make the raised bed were from the concrete garden that I took all apart today. I left the concrete pavers buried in the ground but I ripped the whole raised planter out and moved it to the back yard under an american cherry weed, I mean tree. It’s probably in more sun now than it will be once the tree grows in a bit and the new fence goes up but I’ll put a sunscreen up for now to dampen the effect.
Most importantly I purchased hardware cloth that is a metal screen with openings about only a quarter of an inch wide. I spread it out and cut it to line the entire bottom of the raised bed/planter. Now that’s some vole proofin’ there.
Can’t wait till the Empress gets here. Maybe with this set up I’ll finally be able to have a hosta actually mature to a decent size!
Cheesefry Caught a Vole
Cheesefry the cat was out in the garden with me today and while I was busy vole proofing a new bed, she was busy vole hunting near the compost pile. She caught one but then being the not-so-smart cat that she is, she brought it over to me and dropped it in a hosta bed.
Panic.
It immediately tried to hide by squeezing itself into a gap in the bed’s edging. With nothing on hand except empty pots that had been holding the plants I was moving, I threw a pot over it. Then I grabbed a couple of other pots and put them together to get block the drain holes and scooped him up.
Now what.
I’m not an animal killer, despite my urges to the contrary when it comes to voles. I had to let him go but I did take him far-far away and put a good sized piece of asphalt between him and my garden before I let him go.
Dang, it’s Hot!
It’s really hot out this weekend, 92 in the shade and the heat index up over 100 degrees with all of the humidity. Gardening is a bear for me in this weather because my body just doesn’t want to tolerate this kind of heat and fights back with spells of nausea and sleepiness.
Hosta don’t really like the heat either and although I don’t think they get nauseous, they will faint away without adequate water. At Hallson Gardens, Chris has recommended not watering if the temperatures are over 90 degrees if you have a problem with fungus or southern blight. While I have had a spot of southern blight here and there, I don’t think my hosta would survive without intense watering even in the heat. While I do wait until the end of the day or early in the morning to water, restrictions only allow me to water every other day rather than the daily watering I prefer for my sandy, fast draining soil.
With only one hot day my garden soil turns to dust. Only every other day watering combined with current and decomposed mulch/layered organic matter gives me any water retention. It’s another reason I water at night rather than the morning because the moisture evaporates so quickly with AM watering it probably isn’t as effectve. At some point I might be able to add enough organic matter to make a difference but given this soil’s ability to drain – all of the organic matter in the world would probably eventually be washed away!
As an example, today while I was staking a few non-hosta plants I could sink the four foot stakes in the ground like a knife through (sandy) butter. While I didn’t need them to go in all the way, I could have kept pushing them into the ground until they disappeared!
It’s hot. Yuck.
Time to move north?
Beautiful hosta – not in my garden sheesh, I wish - probably Sagae at Longwood Gardens at the end of May:
