If your garden is covered in small mounds of loose soil, you may be facing a mole infestation. Read on to find out the best way to humanely stop garden moles from damaging your lawn.
Getting Rid of Moles
Biodiversity is a growing trend among gardeners looking to enjoy healthy lawns and an array of plant life in an eco-friendly manner. Alongside all the birds, bees, and butterflies this will attract, a more diverse garden will also attract worms. Following the worms will be moles.
Fortunately, you can attract insects to your garden while keeping it free of moles.
Natural Mole Repellent
The best mole-control method is to make your garden unappealing as a habitat. You could use natural repellents like putting fermented yoghurt or coffee grounds into their tunnels. The smell should stop the moles from coming back – but this doesn’t stop them causing damage in the first place.
Mole Netting
Mole netting will stop the moles from digging through to the surface of your lawn, but it can only be installed under new turf: not ideal if you already have a lawn.
Limit Natural Food Sources
Any appealing habitat has a lot of food to offer, and moles like lawns with lots of worms. So, if you keep your lawn free of worms, moles won’t want to move in.
“Aren’t worms good for soil?” we hear you cry.
Yes, but you can maintain a healthy lawn while keeping down the number of worms. For further information, check out our lawn care advice.
If you’re specifically aiming to reduce the number of worms, water your garden less frequently, water it deeply, and aerate it. Worms like moist soil, so if you aerate and deeply-water your lawn, the water will be taken deeper into the soil. If the soil is more moist at deeper levels, that’s where the worms – and by extension, the moles – will go.
You can also top-dress your soil with sand. Not only does this dry out the upper layers of soil, but it can help smooth over any worm casts the worms might create.
Mole Repellent
Any keen gardener will tell you not to get rid of worms entirely, so how do you balance keeping worms in but moles out? One way is to use plants that moles don’t like.
Daffodils have toxic bulbs, so moles will avoid soil that contains daffodil bulbs. You can also plant marigolds, which exude a natural pesticide called pyrethrin. Pyrethrin repels worms, which will also repel moles from your garden. Between marigolds and daffodils, you will have a very colourful mole-free garden! Plants in the allium family can also repel moles thanks to their strong scents. Planting onions and garlic in with your daffodils and marigolds means you’ll get plenty of free veg and keep your garden free from moles.
Preventing Future Mole Problems
Once you’ve got rid of the moles, regular lawn maintenance will ensure they don’t come back.
Aerate your lawn so that the moisture goes deeper into the soil. Mow the grass short so that you can spot the early warning signs of mole arrival.
READ MORE: Lawn Pest Management
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