Mole netting – is it worth it? Advantages, disadvantages, cost, and proper installation depth.

In many gar­dens, mole and vole prob­lems appear sud­den­ly – just yes­ter­day the lawn looked per­fect, and today there are a few fresh mounds. Own­ers often first try home reme­dies: son­ic repel­lents, scent­ed prod­ucts, or traps. In prac­tice, how­ev­er, such solu­tions only work tem­porar­i­ly. The ani­mals can quick­ly move sev­er­al meters away and return to their tun­nel­ing. There­fore, mechan­i­cal solu­tions, such as mole net­ting installed beneath the lawn sur­face, are increas­ing­ly being cho­sen. This cre­ates a bar­ri­er in the soil, pre­vent­ing the ani­mals from emerg­ing to the sur­face and cre­at­ing mounds. What is the cost? mole nets, how many cen­time­ters under­ground Should it be buried and what should you pay atten­tion to? Find out by read­ing our post!

Mole netting – is it worth choosing for your garden?

Mole net for the gar­den It’s a durable plas­tic grid that’s placed under the entire lawn or with­in select­ed green areas to pre­vent rodents from push­ing up soil. It does­n’t repel ani­mals with scent or sound, but acts as a mechan­i­cal bar­ri­er, so its effec­tive­ness isn’t depen­dent on weath­er or pest activ­i­ty. It’s a long-term method because, when prop­er­ly installed, mole net remains in the ground for years. Below we present advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages this solu­tion:

How to install mole netting?

The effec­tive­ness of this solu­tion depends large­ly on prop­er instal­la­tion. Plac­ing the pro­tec­tion too shal­low or too deep can result in ani­mals still being able to cre­ate tun­nels and push the soil to the sur­face. There­fore, before start­ing work with mole net it’s worth know­ing, at what depth it works best and what its cor­rect arrange­ment looks like in the case of a rolled or seed­ed lawn.

How deep should the mole netting be?

The great­est effec­tive­ness mole and vole net is achieved when it is laid rel­a­tive­ly shal­low below the lawn sur­face. How deep So where should it be placed? In prac­tice, the opti­mal instal­la­tion depth is usu­al­ly around 5–10 cm under­ground. This allows the ani­mal, which tun­nels just beneath the turf, to encounter the bar­ri­er before it push­es the soil to the sur­face and cre­ates a mound. If the mesh is installed too deep, the mole can tun­nel above it and con­tin­ue dam­ag­ing the lawn.

What else should you pay attention to?

In prac­tice, a small mar­gin of error is per­mis­si­ble dur­ing installation—usually a few cen­time­ters up or down—but the clos­er to the opti­mal depth, the more effec­tive the pro­tec­tion will be. Sub­strate prepa­ra­tion and ter­rain also play a sig­nif­i­cant role. On sloped or uneven plots, or in areas where the ground is raised or low­ered, the opti­mal depth may vary. Dur­ing instal­la­tion, it’s worth mon­i­tor­ing the soil lay­er to ensure the mesh does­n’t sit too shal­low in one spot and too deep in anoth­er.

It’s best to plan the instal­la­tion of mesh while the lawn is being estab­lished, either by seed or by roll, or while prepar­ing flowerbeds and oth­er green areas. Sub­se­quent adjust­ments could prove much more dif­fi­cult and cost­ly.

For a rolled lawn, the mesh is laid out on a lev­el sur­face, then cov­ered with a thin lay­er of soil, and then the turf is laid on top. For a lawn estab­lished from seed, it is best to place the mesh on the pre­pared sur­face and cov­er it with a lay­er of soil a few cen­time­ters thick, into which the grass seeds are then sown. In both cas­es, it is impor­tant to lay it even­ly, main­tain over­laps between the strips of mate­r­i­al (usu­al­ly about 10–15 cm), and sta­ble attach­ment to the ground. This will pre­vent ani­mals from get­ting between the mesh sec­tions, and the entire lawn area will remain effec­tive­ly pro­tect­ed.

Mole netting directly under the grass from a roll – how does it work?

Installing a mole net begins with thor­ough ground prepa­ra­tion. First, remove any stones, roots, and larg­er clods of soil, then lev­el and light­ly com­pact the ground. Strips of net­ting are laid out on the pre­pared sur­face, over­lap­ping the mesh by sev­er­al cen­time­ters to pre­vent the ani­mals from escap­ing through the gaps. If nec­es­sary, the net­ting can be secured to the ground with spe­cial gar­den pegs. The next step is to cov­er it with a thin lay­er of soil—usually about a few centimeters—separating the net­ting from the turf. Only then, after this prepa­ra­tion, is the grass roll laid, pressed into the ground and watered to pro­mote root­ing.

Can mole netting be installed on an existing lawn?

Installing mole net­ting over an exist­ing lawn is pos­si­ble, but in prac­tice, it’s sig­nif­i­cant­ly more dif­fi­cult than secur­ing the area before lay­ing new turf. To lay the mate­r­i­al at the cor­rect depth, you must first remove the lawn lay­er or top­soil, then spread the mate­r­i­al and re-cre­ate the entire sur­face. This means more work, high­er costs, and the risk of tem­porar­i­ly dam­ag­ing the lawn’s appear­ance after the work is com­plet­ed. For this rea­son, this solu­tion is pri­mar­i­ly used when the gar­den has already been severe­ly dam­aged by moles and major resur­fac­ing, reseed­ing, or com­plete grass replace­ment are planned. If the lawn is in good con­di­tion and the prob­lem has only just arisen, own­ers often resort to emer­gency mea­sures first, post­pon­ing the instal­la­tion of the net­ting until a future gar­den ren­o­va­tion.

It must there­fore be clear­ly empha­sized that in the case of an exist­ing lawn, it is usu­al­ly impos­si­ble to install a mesh with­out inter­fer­ing with the turf — for the solu­tion to be effec­tive, it is usu­al­ly nec­es­sary to at least par­tial­ly remove the grass and re-pre­pare the ground.

Mole netting and planting plants

Using mole net­ting does­n’t pre­clude plant­i­ng in the gar­den. For flowerbeds or areas where plant­i­ng is planned, small cross-shaped inci­sions are made in the net­ting. This allows for easy dig­ging and plant­i­ng, while still pro­tect­ing most of the soil sur­face from mole activ­i­ty. This solu­tion is used, among oth­er things, when plant­i­ng orna­men­tal shrubs, peren­ni­als, and small trees.

It’s impor­tant, how­ev­er, to make the cuts in the mesh as small as pos­si­ble and only in the areas where plant­i­ng is planned. This allows for the con­ti­nu­ity of the pro­tec­tive bar­ri­er in the rest of the gar­den. Plant roots eas­i­ly grow through the mesh or the cuts, so its pres­ence in the soil should­n’t hin­der the prop­er devel­op­ment of the root sys­tem. This allows you to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly pro­tect your lawn from moles and car­ry out gar­den­ing tasks relat­ed to plant­i­ng with­out inter­rup­tion.

Mole netting and the irrigation system

The mesh allows water to freely pen­e­trate the low­er lay­ers of the soil, so with prop­er instal­la­tion, the lawn can still be watered even­ly. How­ev­er, it’s impor­tant to remem­ber that it’s best to plan the irri­ga­tion sys­tem and rodent pro­tec­tion in par­al­lel, even before the lawn is estab­lished. Typ­i­cal­ly, the soil is first pre­pared and irri­ga­tion sys­tem com­po­nents, such as pipes and sprin­klers, are posi­tioned, and then the mesh is adjust­ed to avoid hin­der­ing future main­te­nance. If repairs or recon­struc­tion of the sys­tem are nec­es­sary in the future, the pres­ence of the mesh in the ground may require local­ized cut­ting and re-seal­ing.

Mole netting – which one to choose?

Choos­ing the right mole net­ting depends pri­mar­i­ly on the size of the area being pro­tect­ed and the tech­ni­cal para­me­ters of the mate­r­i­al. Roll dimen­sions 1 × 100 m is a good solu­tion for both small gar­dens and larg­er green areas. In turn, the vari­ant 2 × 100 m allows for faster pro­tec­tion of large sur­faces, because one roll can cov­er a much larg­er area.

Mesh size is also an impor­tant para­me­ter, which for nets used under lawns is typ­i­cal­ly around 12 x 12 mm. They effec­tive­ly block moles from push­ing up soil with­out restrict­ing the flow of water, air, or min­er­als in the soil. This allows the grass’s root sys­tem to devel­op nat­u­ral­ly.

The mate­r­i­al used is equal­ly impor­tant. Mesh­es designed for under­ground instal­la­tion are typ­i­cal­ly made of durable polypropy­lene, which is resis­tant to UV radi­a­tion, mois­ture, fer­til­iz­ers, and soil chem­i­cals. This pre­vents them from decom­pos­ing too quick­ly and can effec­tive­ly pro­tect your lawn for many sea­sons.

Mole netting – cost and price per m²

Many peo­ple won­der how much it costs to secure a gar­den this way. The price depends pri­mar­i­ly on the size of the area, the type of mesh, and the method of instal­la­tion. There­fore, it’s worth check­ing the mate­ri­al’s cost per square meter and the bud­get for gar­dens of var­i­ous sizes.

Mole net – price per m²

The price of mole net­ting depends pri­mar­i­ly on the width of the roll and the area it needs to pro­tect. Samm­ler offers rolls of, among oth­ers: 1 × 100 m allow­ing to pro­tect approx­i­mate­ly 100 m² of lawn, as well as a vari­ant 2 × 100 m COMPACT allow­ing the pro­tec­tion of up to 200 m² of sur­face with one roll. You can find their cur­rent prices here.

Mole netting – cost of production

When installing pest con­trol your­self, the most impor­tant thing is the cost is the pur­chase of the net and pos­si­ble mount­ing pins.

Exam­ple costs of gar­den secu­ri­ty with self-assem­bly in the gar­den:

• 100 m² – approx­i­mate­ly PLN 159 (1 roll of mesh 1 × 100 m),
• 300 m² – approx­i­mate­ly PLN 477–538 (3 rolls 1 × 100 m or 2 rolls 2 × 100 m),
• 500 m² – approx­i­mate­ly PLN 795–807 (5 rolls of 1 × 100 m or 3 rolls of 2 × 100 m),
• 1000 m² – approx­i­mate­ly PLN 1,315–1,590 (5 rolls of 2 × 100 m or 10 rolls of 1 × 100 m).

Mole net­ting is one of the most afford­able meth­ods for pro­tect­ing your lawn from mole­hills. The one-time instal­la­tion cost is min­i­mal com­pared to the costs of repair­ing a dam­aged lawn, lev­el­ing the ground, or re-sow­ing the lawn.

Summary – does mole netting really work?

Mole net­ting is one of the most effec­tive meth­ods of pro­tect­ing your lawn from mounds and turf dam­age. It’s most effec­tive when planned dur­ing the gar­den instal­la­tion phase or when replac­ing the lawn. Prop­er installation—approximately 5–10 cm below the ground, with the over­laps between the strips of netting—creates a durable bar­ri­er that pre­vents the ani­mals from push­ing soil up to the sur­face. Although net­ting is an addi­tion­al expense when installing a lawn, in the long run, it’s an invest­ment that allows you to avoid numer­ous repairs, reseed­ing, and re-lev­el­ing after mole activ­i­ty. There­fore, in gar­dens where moles are a reg­u­lar prob­lem, installing net­ting under the lawn will often be the most durable and cost-effec­tive solu­tion.

If you are plan­ning to install a new lawn or mod­ern­ize your gar­den, check out the avail­able solu­tions in the Samm­ler offer. Here you’ll find mole nets in a vari­ety of widths, allow­ing you to effec­tive­ly pro­tect both small home gar­dens and larg­er green spaces.