Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Tenacious bulb eaters and the bulbs they might not eat!
You know who they are… these little menaces wrapped in fur and cute little pudgy bodies… the enemy of the bulb!
They are tenacious, they are SQUIRRELS! Red ones, brown ones, black ones, white ones, they love digging up your newly planted bulbs to feast. People have discussed ideas about what to do for as long as we’ve planted bulbs.
Some say the most effective method is to sink chicken wire into the ground around your bulb bed and then cover the area with more chicken wire and mulch it.
Yeah, that’s not happening for me!
Other gardeners say that just laying the chicken wire on top along with mulching the area works for them. Some folks say their dog keeps the squirrels away. They are the most persistent little creatures on earth! AND, they’ll even eat bulbs that they’re NOT supposed to like, such as grape hyacinth and daffodils.
However, they’re not big on onions, so Alliums are a good choice, I just picked up Allium shubertii last week! It looks like a reddish/purple sparkler! Can’t wait to see it next Spring.
Other not-so-tasty options include Pinkbells, Squill and Summer Snowflake.
There’s a product called Tree Guard , used to protect trees from deer, that you can spray your bulbs with before you plant. It’s main ingredient is called Bitrex and is quite bitter tasting to animals. I don’t endorse this as I’ve never used it.
There’s also a Plantskydd product for squirrels. I’ve had a lot of luck with plantskydd for rabbits. I like it too because it comes in a shaker bag of granules, lasts for 3 months and is completely safe for pets, people and plants.
