Utter destruction of my flowerbed c/o moles or possibly voles

As you can see from the pictures I have attached, moles and/or voles have throughly destroyed the landscaping and planting I worked so hard to achieve last summer. At least half of my flowers have been pushed up out of the ground at some point, some are actually lying on their sides, left with a rootball no bigger than the clumps of peat they came out of their plastic planters with last summer. As such, I have a few questions:

-What is the best way, in your wise and varied opinions, to eradicate this problem? My only concern is the flowerbed. The lawn is the responsibility of co-op management, but obviously the two are connected. Management won't do anything about it until it is warmer because of thaw/freeze cycles. I would prefer to get started now, as this problem is completely unacceptable to me. I am not picky about the mole's feelings in all of this; whether it's a live-trap or a fork between the shoulder blades, I want the best solution.

-Is this going to be a problem year in and year out, or is there a way of dealing with this that will substantially lessen the devastation in future seasons?

-And finally, what is the likelihood that some/many of my plants have been terminally affected? The shrubs I'm sure are fine, but I don't know about the flowers, which were planted at the beginning of August, and may have insufficient root systems to survive being pushed out of the ground like so many zits. The flowers are phlox, gaillardia, rubeckia, mums, and hibiscus. I don't know how long they have been pushed up as they have been covered in snow most of the winter. Any thoughts?

I'm not 100% sure, but I think this constitutes "mole-icious" behavior.

 

Strange! Not sure what would do that. It doesn't look like what moles do, at least not the moles we get in Britain (Talpa europaea).

 

Are you sure that this weird effect has been caused by moles/voles...? Could it not be frost-heaving aftermath?

 

Yes, it's definitely m/voles. There are characteristic raised tunnels everywhere, and entrance/exit mounds in the lawn.

I should have expected this. Not 24 hours after I finished planting all that stuff last year, I walked outside to see a tunnel in the process of being made...the earth was actually undulating as it moved. I ran back inside to grab my trowel so I could give it a back massage, but it disappeared on me. The next day I went and complained to apartment management, and the problem was promptly taken care of. Silly me, I thought that would be the end of the issue, never expecting that he/she/it/they would run absolutely willy-nilly all winter long. I guess if you want a thing done right you have to do it yourself.

 

Probably voles then, particularly if the raised tunnels were made when the ground was snow-covered.

Voles are the worse to have, as they eat plant roots and bark; moles eat invertebrates (mainly earthworms).

 

Ye gods! Well, the ole-creatures have made their position clear: they don't want your plants ornamenting their ceiling. Way I see it is 1. you say oh well and forgo the plants, or 2. break out the napalm. No middle ground. ---Many anti-ole products available at your local hardware store, ranging from the humane to the sadistically medieval. I'm thinking you're goin' for the full Dark Ages monty here. Bill Murray in "Caddyshack", perhaps. Spanish Inquisition redux. It's the auto-da-fe and Catherine wheel for you, furry vermin!

 

What a difference a couple of days makes.

I probably will just wait for my landlord to do something and see what happens. I got a job offer for a few months in Alaska, so it's not like I'll be looking at my landscaping every day this summer. I'll be back in time to see the mums flourishing, basically. If they're not all dead.

I was getting pretty psyched up to get all Dresden on the intruders, though.

 

Not sure any chrysanthemums will have survived the winter cold anyway.

Nice one on the Alaska job! Hope you enjoy it. What doing?

 

Well, if nothing else it ought to be an interesting experience... I will be a cook at a fish hatchery on an island many, many, many miles from any variant of civilization. As one might imagine, I have ordered nearly $150 worth of books from ebay in the past 48 hours...

 

Cool! In high school, a friend of mine spent a summer in Kodiak, AK working at a fish cannery. She not only survived the experience, but is a lovely person throughout. Good luck to you! One requirement: you MUST stay in touch with us! We would miss you. (Insert tearful emoticon here.) Hmmm...blog material...?

 

Yep, keep posting here inbetween cooking for the fish hatchlings! And post some photos of the trees in the area, Alaskan maritime temperate rainforest will be very nice to see.