Deterring squirrels - help

I put empty hanging baskets over the pots with bulbs planted in them.

Live and let live, I would say.
Squirrels are lovely little creatures. They won't dig up your bulbs unless they are hungry. Many people are prejudiced against squirrels in the garden for reasons I don't understand.

J52

I put empty hanging baskets over the pots with bulbs planted in them.

We've done that, j52. It's the ones in open ground that they are digging up. Bless 'em.

They are basically rates with a bit of bling.

You can’t get rid of them ever😬

rats rats…..

On open ground, I put wooden BBQ skewers in around builds and seedlings. They also deter cats and pigeons and are biodegradable.

Bulbs! What’s wrong with autocorrect this morning.

I don’t like grey squirrels because they have pushed out our native red squirrels.

MrB has an ongoing war with them over the bird feeders. The little beggars are very destructive and most squirrel proof feeders don’t work. The most effective deterrent appears to be MrB running out into the garden, flapping his arms and shouting,

When I was in my house in Oxfordshire I had lots of squirrels in my garden. I tried every trick known to man (and squirrel) to deter them.
Nothing worked. In the end I decided on the 'if you can't beat them, join them ' tactic.
I put out nuts for the squirrels. With their own food supply they left the bird feeders alone and stopped digging up bulbs. They still buried horse chestnuts in the lawn and in pots though.

Research shows it is a myth that "grey squirrels have pushed out reds". And please don't call them rats - such a cliche.
Greys and reds have different habitat requirements. Red squirrels prefer pine forests and are quite fussy about what they eat. Grey squirrels have a more varied diet.

Aldom

When I was in my house in Oxfordshire I had lots of squirrels in my garden. I tried every trick known to man (and squirrel) to deter them.
Nothing worked. In the end I decided on the 'if you can't beat them, join them ' tactic.
I put out nuts for the squirrels. With their own food supply they left the bird feeders alone and stopped digging up bulbs. They still buried horse chestnuts in the lawn and in pots though.

That's interesting aldom.

Just peanuts and in a dish or did you make it difficult for them?

Netherbyg84

Research shows it is a myth that "grey squirrels have pushed out reds". And please don't call them rats - such a cliche.
Greys and reds have different habitat requirements. Red squirrels prefer pine forests and are quite fussy about what they eat. Grey squirrels have a more varied diet.

Oh ok.

Rodents with bling😬

We did the same as Aldom. Put bird food in squirrel proof containers. Then installed a wooden squirrel feeder on the fence, sat back and enjoyed their antics getting to the nuts. As long as we kept replenishing the stock there was no further bulb digging.

Here there aren’t so many, they rarely dig in the ground. They do however attack bulbs in containers. We solved that by putting chicken wire around any small plants then over the sides of the containers the containers, the bulbs grow through the wire.

Yes, I know grey squirrels are a menace but they are fun to watch.

Bird feeders attract not only squirrels.....personally I'd get rid of the feeders, you really do not want squirrels to get into your home. I knew someone that got them in their loft, it took two years to get rid off them because they do return and the smell........yuck.

We have loads of squirrels because we are surrounded by trees. For the feeders we just moved them into open ground and put squirrel baffles around the poles. If you haven't seen them they are just plastic dishes that stop the squirrels from climbing the poles to get at the food. Now the squirrels grab all the fallen food that the birds leave in the grass, which is fine.

They did eat most of the bulbs we put in the garden many years ago but don't seem to bother with the pots for some reason. Maybe they are too close to the house.

Please don't use peppers to deter them as they burn the squirrels mouth and throat and can lead to a painful death from starvation.

A neighbour had a few of thousand pounds electrical repairs bill after a squirrel had chewed through cables in their loft. I'd wondered how they can get into lofts until the day I witnessed one climbing my outside house wall. There were quite a few in our surrounding gardens until a different neighbour decided to chop down his large conifer. Suppose it meant some other poor area would be suffering instead. Do you know that if a grey squirrel is caught that it's illegal to then release it. They have to be humanely destroyed. Cute looking but still vermin.
basc.org.uk/pest-and-predator-control/grey-squirrel-control-with-live-capture-traps

I used to bury chicken wire deep and then plant bulbs under that. Seemed to help.

Give them an alternative. I feed mine. All my bulbs come up.

Kitty I have a ground feeder tray with a guard over the tray. It's intended for the ground feeding birds really. However once I had decided to feed the squirrels I used this for their nuts. It worked very well.

I love squirrels and would love to have them visiting my garden but living by a busy main road I don’t see them
Live and let live they all need food

Me too - love squirrels. I don’t see many these days.

I love squirrels. Years ago I had one I hand reared. We get one or two in the garden, but not enough to be a nuisance.

Not many squirrels here, but when one turned up in my garden - unfortunately just a grey - I called it Hazel and bought commercial squirrel food from the garden centre. However, I know they are vermin - just rats with tails - and several people offered to shoot it for me!

Red squirrels are, of course, a whole different subject.

After I've bought the bulbs and the compost and taken the trouble to plant them - I want to see blooms .
I've tried lots of methods and the only one that works is to arrange some wooden kebab sticks in the pots.