Sounds more like pocket gophers to me. Voles have been in our dahlia patch for many years and cause only occasional damage. Gophers think that they can store dahlia tubers in their burrows to eat during the winter. One gopher can destroy 4-5 plants a day. They will destroy a dahlia patch and you should hire someone to trap them immediately.

This is the first yr. that I have had a extremely bad problem w/ voles this yr. this is still going on.! PULLED 3 out of my pool-dead yesterday. I have a lot of dahlias and I don't think they are bothering them since they are in bloom. they ate all my sun flowers twice in the beging of the season.destroyed my delphiniums,but did not eat them like my sun flowers.I have had to resort to mole max,mole peanuts and find active tunnels and use the poison bombs in the tunnels to disrupt birth cycle.you have to be careful-need to find active tunnels-i have a dog.this is poison!this helped-but now problem is starting again and they are not touching dahlias.also hurt/killed daylies/made home under them.they seem to like young tender plants.although i do have some dahlias that i can't find were i planted? having lot's of critter problems/gopher/killed 1 robin/i saved 1 fledgling-had a gopher attack on their nest,chased him w/ broom-was suprised,went out birds screaming he jumped out of fence were the nest was,made new nest-parents fed him and was gone next day. saw him flying in yard.made me happy he made it! bad critter year!mc1720161318099ec rosa abbystractkat@cox.net

We are overrun with voles some years, and this year is one of those years. But dahlias is one thing they've never touched in my yard.

Loved you description Nerak and I am sorry. The voles have eaten anything new that I put in this year so why bother. I have gaping holes that should have perennials. Took down a stand of cone flower razzmatazz which they have left alone for 3 years. The do get dahlias. Have lost all 5 that I put in the perennial garden. In the dahlia garden I have raised beds. Went out one morning and two were laying on their sides. I could pick them straight up off the ground. Found one tuber in the gravel with huge teeth marks in it. I have put everything I know about in the dahlia garden. I mised up some hot sauce, cayenne pepper, vinager and burned my hadn doing it. Put in down every hole I found and also found mounds of voles and made a hole and dumped it inthere. They are still going! I wonder what I can do with my beautiful gardens this fall so I don't have this problem next year?

hello Pdshop,
tried to email/intext/no luck so trying this forum. The voles/gophers/other critters this yr.are so out of control and I,m also worried about winter/fall. From what i read
voles do not hibernate in the winter, they like to make their homes under pine trees w/ a lot of mulch, which is were I found many tunnels this spring during clean up/prep for all my gardening.Lot's of perennial/some missing-voles?
I am still using mole/vole max,the poison peanuts,and the bombs just to try and keep the population down. It is helping.hot sauce and all that other stuff I'm not sure will kill them, insects poss w/cayenne pepper spray did help w/ white fly in my tomato garden/they are gone for now.
I saw a vole very early this morning and new sun flower's grown in planter/treated w/ mole max and plantskydd/transfer
(good sized) to my garden was eaten pretty sure by voles/
Live in R.I.&we are having lot's of rain/washed away to much of treatment.Voles, i read can have as many as 16 or more liter's(lack of better word)a yr.they don't live long but bread a lot and young. 1 reason for the over population.
We have pulled about 30 voles/neighbor the same 12 in 1 day. they carry a lot of disease,insect(big tick problem)
and in winter will eat the root of pine trees and strip it's bark and eat that so I read. KILLING THEM BEFORE WINTER HAS BECOME MY GOAL! A long w/ killing the gopher(now have trap). Mole max & Repel is why I think I have tomato's-use it around perimeter of garden/not in the garden(eating this stuff). Ref: lg. teeth marks poss. gopher.If you know of and where active tunnels are you are ahead of the game. the peanuts are poison-they like them-eat and die. the revenge smoke bombs use in tunnels kills babies-must use both IN TUNNELS.This is the worst summer i have ever had as far as gardening.weird tomato problems/lost dahlia tubers/lost perennials,gardens look wrong in so many ways!good luck w/ getting rid of critters!
mc172016138099ec abbystractkat@cox.net

Pdshop,
go to my page and click on my clippings for more info. on problems w/ voles I've had this yr. Also the 30 voles came out dead from my pool. who wants to swim in it now!

Where is your page

JWS, the post you are referring to was from 2011, when this forum was run by GardenWeb. Members had space to put their own information down, with tradelists and other fun stuff. This forum has since been sold to Houzz, and I believe all that personal info was wiped out. Not sure on that, as I didn't partake in the extra stuff outside the dahlia forum.

Thanks. The old gardenweb was much better.