7 Effective Ways To Drive Away Moles

Last updated on October 23rd, 2023 at 08:51 pm

Moles, those subterranean tunnel-diggers, can quickly turn a lush garden into a lumpy, unsightly mess. If you’ve ever battled these elusive creatures, you know how challenging it can be. But fear not, for this guide is here to help you understand and implement effective strategies to drive moles away from your garden. From natural remedies to humane deterrents and professional assistance, we’ll explore a range of options to help you regain control of your outdoor space. Say goodbye to molehills and hello to a well-tended garden. Let’s dive into the world of mole control and start protecting your green oasis.

Below are presented 7 effective and long-term methods to drive away the mole.

1 Use smells to drive away the mole

The mole does not exactly have good eyesight. The prejudice that the mole is generally blind is not very accurate in this regard, because although his eyesight is not very good, he is still not completely blind.

On the other hand, to compensate for its poor eyesight, it has an excellent sense of smell.

Therefore, one way to drive the mole out of the garden in the long term is to annoy him with unpleasant odors. After all, who wants to live in a smelly place for a long time?

At the same time, the sense of smell seems to react to unpleasant odors similar to those of humans. So moles can be driven away with sour milk, garlic cloves, or vinegar essences.

To expose the mole to these odors, the proposed agents should be diluted with water and sprayed with a spray bottle. For these odorants to be effective, the molehills must be opened and then sprayed with the agents. The method is most effective when the mole burrow is sprayed with the stink bombs every few feet.

Depending on the weather, this procedure should be repeated once a week. If you repeat this ritual regularly, you should see success after a short time and no more new piles will be thrown up.

If you are not comfortable spreading the odor with these home remedies and would like to try alternative methods, you can also purchase special scents at specialty stores.

Once the mole is successfully driven away, you can protect yourself from a new infestation in the future by using these scents at the edge of the garden. Of course, these should not be so penetrating that they also annoy the neighbor, but even a very subtle smell can be enough to warn the mole from entering their garden.

2 Acoustic waves to get rid of the mole.

Light vibrations are also unpleasant for the mole and its very distinct sense of touch. If he perceives these vibrations over a longer period of time, he will seek the distance and prefer to go to a quieter place.

To create these vibrations, you can use very simple home remedies. It is best to take an old glass bottle, make sure that it is completely empty and place it on the molehill. The wind will now provide the necessary propulsion and set the bottle into slight vibration, which will be transferred to the molehill. During this process, the bottle should be slightly inclined to the wind direction.

The advantage of this method is that it is very inexpensive and requires little work.

Are bottles not fancy enough for you? Then you can also set up small pinwheels or other wind chimes. Place the ends directly into the molehill and the vibrations of the wind chime will transfer to the burrow.

The use of ultrasonic devices is popular with many amateur gardeners. However, whether these actually have a great effect is not really proven. Therefore, refrain from buying expensive devices with which you want to create these sound waves.

However, the best way to generate the vibrations is to mow the lawn. If in the main season the lawn is mowed about once or twice a week, the moles should also stay away. For this purpose, gasoline lawn mowers are suitable, as they develop the greatest power.

3 Levelling the molehills

You can also drive away the mole with a very simple method. The mole is also a rather domestic animal and if you destroy the entrances more often, it will have to dig new passages for itself. After a certain time, however, it will no longer want to do this and will look for another place where it is more undisturbed.

Therefore, with a little patience, you can drive away the mole by leveling his mounds and entrances directly. For this purpose, it is a good idea to tackle the molehills directly with the garden hose. Simply spray the soil back into the passage and the mole will have some trouble digging new exits again.

However, this method alone is not particularly effective. Often the moles are not impressed by this and simply dig other passages. However, since you should level the mounds anyway for a better look, you can combine this method wonderfully with other possibilities.

4 Noise and sounds drive the mole away

Not only is the sense of smell very strong, but hearing is also amazingly sensitive. The mole has a very good sense of hearing so that it can find its way under the ground and not lose its orientation on the surface.

If you want to drive the mole away, you can use the same methods as for vibration. Since sounds and noise are nothing but sound waves, you can use the bottle method again.

Place the bottle with the opening into the wind and the sounds as well as the vibrations will drive the mole away.

If you want to use a more aggressive method and not wait for the wind to drive the mole away, you can also insert a metal rod into the molehill. You can hit it and the resulting sound and vibration will send a clear signal that will make the mole flee. However, this method requires some patience and some perseverance.

Better suited for this purpose are the so-called “mole scarecrows”. These can be easily inserted into the garden and ensure with a little vibration that the mole is driven away. These are already available in solar versions, so they do not run out of energy. These devices are also excellent for prevention, if it is to be prevented that moles want to make themselves comfortable in their garden

5 Drive the mole away with water

The goal should not be to drown the mole, but to put one of its tunnels under water, so that it feels so harassed that it looks for a new place to live.

You can combine this method with leveling the molehills. In the first step you can direct water into the opening and then level the molehill.

However, it will take some time for the mole to find a new home. So you will have to repeat this process several times until the mole is so annoyed that it is driven out of your garden.

The animal is not harmed in the process and the water seeps into the soil after the shortest route anyway.

6 Use alcohol to drive the mole away

No, you should not fill the mole with alcohol until it gets lost and finds a new home. That moles have a keen sense of smell has already been established and some methods have been shown how you can use this fact to drive the mole away.

But have you just had a party and still have empty champagne or wine bottles? Then you should not simply dispose of them, but you can use them to repel the moles. The stronger the bottle and the higher the alcohol content, the more effective the defense and the mole is more likely to feel harassed.

To drive the mole away, the bottle is inserted into the burrow with the opening. This is different from the method used to create vibrations or sounds. Although bottles are also used here, but the use is quite different.

The bottle with the opening should be inserted into the burrow as far as possible. So that you can find this bottle should be about 10 centimeters out of the ground.

If the party was a little larger, this is, of course, even better for fighting the mole. It is best to put the alcohol bottles in each of the openings, so that the mole is harassed to the maximum.

Driving away by means of alcohol bottles is a particularly simple and effective method that can be done without much effort. The visual restrictions caused by the bottles are even reduced to a minimum, since they protrude only a few centimeters from the ground.

7 plants

In a completely natural way, you can also put from the beginning on plants that do not like to be smelled by the mole. This method is especially useful for long-term and natural defense against the mole.

Among the types of plants that do not like to be smelled by the mole, for example, is the imperial crown and lily. If you plant these plants in your garden, the moles will not come into your garden at all.

However, if you want to grow mainly vegetables in your garden, you can also rely on the driving away power of garlic. This smell is not only unpleasant for humans, but also moles feel harassed by it.

Did you know that the sense of smell of the mole is about 50x as fine as that of humans? Smells are therefore perceived particularly finely and intensively. Unpleasant odors are therefore also somewhat more to him and he is thereby driven away.

Horseradish is also one of the plants that can keep the mole away in the long term.

Furthermore, you can also use peppermint and elderflower. You can grow these plants in your garden and when they are ripe, you can also use the flowers to prepare an infusion. You can put this particularly strong mixture in the entrances of the mole, so that it will be driven away by this “welcome smell”.

The behavior of the mole

To better drive away the mole, it is certainly advantageous to know how it behaves and its way of life. Normally, the mole lives alone in the burrow. Only in spring the animal starts to mate and after about 4 weeks the young are born. A litter consists of about 4 young moles, which are still very clumsy and need the support of the mother.

After already six months the sexual maturity begins and after 12 months the animals are considered to be fully grown. If the weather allows it and it is particularly mild, then also two litters of the mother animal per year can take place.

The young animals, however, will not leave the protective burrow, but will remain there until they are halfway able to defend themselves. Above ground, however, the mole is quite defenseless at any age, so it is very rare to find it there.

So if you want to chase the mole away, you should make sure it finds a new location, especially in the spring and before winter sets in. Once he feels comfortable in your garden and possibly still has young in the burrow, then the chances of driving him away from there are poor.

Catching and moving the mole

If you want to drive out the mole, it is obvious to simply catch and move it. What sounds in the sense of the protection of species, is in reality however forbidden. Even if there are enough traps in which the mole can be caught alive, it does not survive this procedure in most cases. The great stress and food shortage ensure that he also dies within a very short time in the live trap. So even if you were to check the traps every day, this one would most likely have already died. Of course, a gentle transfer is no longer possible under these conditions.

For this reason, it is strictly forbidden to catch the mole with a trap. Even disturbing the mole in its simple way of life is already borderline and therefore the methods to indirectly drive the mole away should also be done only very gently.

Even more, it is extremely difficult to actually catch the mole. The mole will immediately notice the attempt to attach a trap to the tunnels and will run away due to the vibrations. It is then rather unlikely that the mole will go to this vicinity of the burrow again, but will avoid these places.

Since the mole is threatened with extinction, therefore, proceed only with extreme caution. A mole repellent is a good and gentle way to get rid of it, and the aforementioned methods that appeal to the sense of smell are also effective.

Otherwise, you may just be happy to see such a rare animal scouring their soil for pests and protecting their plants.