Ugh, I am having major squirrel issues this year. I don't know if I can help, but I'm right there with you. They have left my garden and pots and beds a minefield with little holes. I have used animal deterrent spray, but they don't seem to care. I have read that if you use chicken wire over newly planted bulbs, that it will stop them from digging (with wide holes so the plant can grow through it, or remove it in the spring).

I'm not sure my brussel sprouts will make it this year if they keep digging the roots up and breaking the stems off :( They have dug around my newly planted clematis as well and around the area I put bulbs... but not deep enough to disturb them (yet).

LOL Squirrels and chipmunks aren't harmless themselves. The bushy tree rats got most of my tomatoes this year and last years, too. Next year it will be bush tomatoes under a chickenwire tunnel. They also got all my butternut squash, just eating the nearly mature seeds out of the bulb end. Next year the Butterbush will also be under a chicken wire tunnel. I had fewer problems before I harvested my garlic.

If you wish to co-exist, the best thing is to plant the susceptible bulbs in chickenwire baskets. The bulbs will shoot right through the chickenwire, but be aware that the tree rats may also eat flowers. In my area they seem to have a taste for tulip flowers just as they open. Some repellants are said to work especially well on rodents, but all need to be renewed after rain and the little b*****ds tend to learn very quickly to ignore most of them. What works best for me in town is a concealed use of .177 of an inch. In the country that would be .22 of an inch. Works on cottontails, too. Personally feel that neither squirrels nor chipmunks need any help to keep up their numbers beyond the point of nuisance.

Human urine seems to work about as well as anything that isn't lethal, generally splashed around the borders of vegetable beds and can be used in and among flower bulbs. It also probably pays to intermittently use other repellants so the little pests do not get a chance to get used to any one of them.

Thank you for the tips, ayimera and OldDutch.

I think I will then try the chicken wire. Is there any recommended size for the wire holes? My concern is that the bulb growth can be obstructed if the holes are smaller but then a too large size might not be effective against squirrels.

I purchased very expensive fall blooming crocus bulbs many years ago. I used the wire caged and they are still blooming every year.

I once set out about 300 very early, spring blooming crocuses in the lawn. The next morning there were 300 holes where the bulbs were....

You could plant daffodils instead. I hear, and believe, that nothing likes them unless it is the last meal available. Even then, they don't like them.

You need the chicken wire with the medium holes, and the term 'basket' is correct in that the whole works looks like a basket ball.... totally enclosed.

Daffodils are poisonous, which is why they're wisely left alone.

Yes, all the narcissi are poisonous, and so are irises and colchicums. Lilies and tulips on the other hand and apparently crocuses, too, are something the rodents find to be very tasty and for them the baskets are an absolute necessity in some areas.

I'm glad to hear that daffodils should be fine because I plan to plant several varieties. Thank you all very much! Off I go today to get the right chicken wire for lilies and the rest.

I have to throw the monkey wrench in the mix. Often they'll dig up things just to see what they are...so you may well find your daffodils repeatedly exhumed.
Get more chicken wire for this year.

OK, dbarron. Will do! Better safe than sorry... :-)

If you don't mind shopping at a BBS, Home Depot has bags of 50 king size daffodils for $16!

Don't forget to check into mini and miniature daffodils too. They grow nicely among squills that also do not seem to be bothered by critters.

" Often they'll dig up things just to see what they are..."

I wonder if they are after the smell of bone meal. I understand that dogs will dig up because of that.

I once tried to add red pepper powers and another time flakes but have no idea if that worked,

If you are only concerned about the bulbs being dug up, maybe a sheet of chicken wire on top of the soil would work but it will not stop them from eating the leaves and flowers of other bulbs under the iron net.

I am with dbarron here: squirrels are curious. They will dig up any disturbed soil, poisonous bulbs or not. Either of these methods work very well for me:

1. Chicken wire on top of newly planted area. Use bricks to hold down the edges. Remove the chicken wire once the ground has frozen.

Or:

2. Blood meal over spread new planted area. You can spread bloodmeal over new shoots in spring to deter rabbits as well.

Or:
3. Coyote urine. I use it sparingly because it stinks...and expensive. :-D

I have no room to bury metal cages since every inch in my garden is already planted.

Emerogork2, what lovely bulb flowers you have! If mine turn out half as beautiful as yours next spring, I'd be happy.

We are back from the nursery. This is our plan:
- 1/2" chicken wire underneath the bulbs - "basket" style (soil would, of course, be layered first on top of the wire, then bulbs);
- 1" chicken wire on top of the soil, then add mulch to cover it.

A nurseryman advised us to get garden staples and we bought some before seeing pitimpani's post. We had an "aha!" moment and wondered why we didn't think of a simpler solution such as bricks, but I guess it's part of being a newbie gardener. We will still use a few bricks and save some staples for the future.

Thanks a bunch to all! What a wonderful forum.

As was mentioned above, narcissus are poisonous but that doesn't keep the little beasts from digging them up if they are just newly planted. I divided some very expensive split perianth flowered ones this year, and the squirrels kept redigging them up until I finally covered the whole bed with wire for a month.

They also kept digging up my newly purchased and planted perennials which was harder to control as they were spaced around all over the garden.

I recently learned from a couple folks on the Winter Sowing forum that the reason squirrels take a bite out of your tomatoes is that they are thirsty. After setting out saucers of water for them, I have not found bitten tomatoes in my garden.

Sooooo, I think setting out more water for them may help keeping them away from bulbs.....keeping my fingers crossed here. But I spread bloodmeal over my newly planted area anyway.

Thank you for an advice, pitimpinai. This will especially be helpful next year for our tomatoes since we lost almost all of them to squirrels and chipmunks this summer. In the end we gave up but still decided to save a few unripe tomatoes, before they got bitten, and kept in the paper bag, hoping they would ripen. We were told it wouldn't work but 'lo and behold after 3-4 weeks they were all ripen with a nice red color, tasty and juicy (Cherokee purple). We couldn't believe it! Still, it's better and more efficient to harvest them ripen so I'll use saucers of water next year.

The nursery by me sells ground up oyster shells to put on the ground after planting. They say the critters don't like the rough feeling on their paws. So far I planted crocus, daffodils, allium and anemones without them getting dug up or disturbed.

I wonder what the long term effect of oyster shells would be. Calcium? My soil reports always come back with excessively high calcium levels. I have no idea if that is good or bad....

I have recently been placing metal netting (screen, decorative fencing) weighted down with rocks. So far, no evidence of tampering.

I figure that critters will not look for them a few days after you finish planting. Bone meal maybe an attractant. Some people claim that Blood Meal is good but I hear that dogs will dig thinking something meaty is down there.

Some kind of metal screening seems to work. I actually put some under my raised beds to keep out burrowing critters.

Trying to get a coyote to urinate only in the flower bed maybe a challenge.

Sounds like a cute problem to have! I sometimes have the same problem, but not so much because I tend to get lazy with my gardening. But with regards to the problem, short of growing the plants in storage, a solution besides the chicken wire could be trying to create a little compound around the plot that you're growing in? maybe a wooden fence around the plants? Hopefully it works out for you man! Cheers!

Here is a link that might be useful: Supercheap Storage New Zealand

Nothing cute about the bushy tailed rats. Fencing won't work either unless it completely encloses the plants, top included. If you also have ground squirrels and/or chipmunks they may actually dig in under it anyway. None of them will turn down meat either, including birds' eggs, just like a rat. Some of the ground squirrels are even predominantly carnivorous.

Down where you live, down under so to speak, think long tailed rabbits or bushy tailed rats for tree squirrels and just in smaller sizes for chipmunks and many of the ground squirrels.