Concerned gardeners plant with a diversity of color, flower size, and bloom times to fit an array of pollinator preferences and ensure consistent foraging sources. Trowels busily digging and planting native and “bee-friendly” flowers are precursors to better neighborhood bee habitat and food sources during the growing season. Till up what you have, rake away the worst of the green, have a big load of compost delivered, level it all out, sow a high-quality name brand seed into that lush soil and you’ll have a bulletproof lawn by Halloween.Home gardeners everywhere are heeding the call to protect pollinators. Spring soils are too cold for good germination soil temps in August and September are ideal for rapid and near-total germination.Ĭool season lawns despise the hot weather that follows spring seeding, but the same fragile young grass loves growing a deep, strong root system in the cool air and lower temps of fall and winter. If you prefer a cool-season grass that stays green over winter like bluegrass and fescue, the time to start that teardown is right now - not in the spring. More than 50 percent grass? Care for it better. Get Off the Beach and Fix Your Lawn (Really!)ĭo you have more weeds than grass in your lawn? That’s the actual recommended way to gauge whether or not to tear it all up and start over. We’re talking deadly and dangerous spring-loaded plunger mechanisms, which always seemed to me to be an excessive response to a creature that doesn’t eat your plants - and talk about dangerous for children. You can try castor oil repellents and treating the lawn with milky spore, a natural, nontoxic organism that will eliminate beetle grubs (one of their biggest food sources), but rescuing another big dog has a higher chance of success.Īfter that, it’s down to traps - and not Hav-a-Hart “live traps.”
They won’t eat a gummy worm, they don’t chew gum and some studies suggest that vibrations might actually attract them. Moles only eat live, warm, wriggling food - like earthworms and beetle grubs. I can tell you right off that gimmicks like vibrating stakes, poison gummy worms (children might well consume a “gummy worm” they find in the yard, so there’s another reason not to buy that worthless product) and Juicy Fruit gum in the hole do not work.
If they’re liquid, don’t dilute them more than the label says and don’t apply right before a heavy rain. If they’re in granular form, water them well. Look for products with the highest levels of castor oil as the active ingredient and apply them at the maximum rate. For that task, you want super-stinky castor oil, which is the active ingredient in most commercial mole and vole repellents, available at virtually every garden supply store. But it has to be “old school” castor oil, like your grandmother made you take a spoon of when you were sick - or maybe to make you sick because you broke that nice lamp.Ĭastor oil sold for “medicinal” use today is deodorized, which is the opposite of what you want to repel moles and voles. One deterrent common to both moles and voles is castor oil. But the moles will stay if your lawn has lots of alternative food, like abundance of earthworms or “sleeping” cicadas. The only lawn-care “treatment” for moles is to apply grub killer, either a nasty toxic chemical or milky spore, a naturally occurring and nontoxic soil organism that’s deadly to the beetle grubs that moles feast upon.īut neither type of treatment harms the actual moles they just remove one food source (beetle grubs) in the hope that the moles will, as you say, then move on. If the treatments work, will his moles just move to my lawn? And if I then do the same, will we just send them on down the street?” His lawn service has started to treat his lawn. ‘Treating’ a Lawn for MolesĬheri in Annandale has moles in her lawn. But - and this is a big but - all dogs need a lot of attention, care and company and terriers need a home where their boundless energy won’t become a problem. So can “ratting” dogs like Jack Russell terriers. “Big dogs” in general can be very effective. The right kind of dog can keep them away from your landscape, as can outdoor cats (but that’s more controversy than I’d like this summer). Dealing with crawling tree roots or caterpillars requires diligence.Brown azaleas: Are these shallow-rooted plants victims of a hot, dry July?.Wicked wetness makes lawn and garden care tricky.Business & Finance Click to expand menu.