That sounds just awful, Frillylilly. I'm so sorry and wish I could offer something helpful.

One possible problem with trapping unwanted animals is that many have territories and when the animal is removed others move into its vacant territory, depending on their population size and pressure. That may mean trapping them continuously to keep their numbers down.

A possible solution might be to try to exclude them from the garden areas where they are damaging plants. That may mean surrounding the area with metal mesh below ground deep enough to "fence" them out. I'm not sure whether the mesh would also need to be above ground. The only time I had a vole eat daylily roots I placed a trap in its tunnel and caught it. That was in a city area and voles were probably few and far between. We have voles, field mice, etc. here (rural) but so far they have not damaged the daylilies (fingers crossed/knock wood).

Frillylily - It's really discouraging that you have not been able to get rid of the voles. I do live in the city, and we have always had a few voles around, but nothing like what I'm seeing now. It's like every vole in the area decided to move into my yard. My husband died last fall, and I would like to move, if I can sell my house.

Jill - I'm going to try traps and spraying oil first to try to stem the tide.

Maurice - My gardens are too extensive to deal with the mesh wire. If I only had 25 daylilies, I might try that. Thanks for your input though!

Mine started after my next door neighbor died, and his wife cleaned the place up and sold it. I think when she cleaned up they all moved over here. He was a hoarder, and also he didn't keep the back half of the place mowed.

Debra, If you will pull your mulch back a little from your plants it will help a lot.

Boyd - Most of my daylilies and not mulched at all this year. Because of my husband's hospitalizations, both of us getting Covid, and then his death, I didn't do any mulching in the fall. The areas where the vole holes are the worst have no mulch at all. Thanks for the suggestion though!

I don't use mulch in most of my beds or plantings. I did put cedar mulch around some mature privet after voles started killing it, because I read that voles don't like cedar, it didn't phase them at all. I have noticed no difference in mulched areas vs unmulched.

I have caught several voles using peanut butter on small mouse traps from Menards selling in a two pack for around three dollars when they are not on sale. I read a recent article about using a trap with a bucket over the
hole to keep it away from pets, birds etc. Look for recent activity around the opening and use gloves.

I've tried that but only got one or two that way. I did have one trap the critter chewed up and got off of somehow, decided they were too small maybe for voles?

I trap mice around the outside of the house in the autumn trying to keep the ones that manage to get inside down to a minimum. I bait the traps with peanut butter. I have noticed that I catch many field mice but very few voles (nine field mice to one vole approximately). I don't know whether that means voles do not like peanut butter as much as field mice do or whether there are many field mice and few voles around the house.

well I searched that and found that they breed year round basically, they don't hibernate, so they can have up to 10 liters a year, with an average of 5 each liter. So that is 50 babies. Keep in mind if half the offspring are female and they can have a liter within 30 days of age, well, that's alot of voles. Once they settle into an area, if they don't have something preying on them, they can take over rather quickly and ruin alot. Catching a few in a trap here and there isn't going to do anything really when they increase like that. I have tried putting out the poison bait blocks, and I can't tell they eat them, it's like they know and avoid them. Now that I have a dog and and 2 cats, I don't use them. Thinking about setting the whole place on fire