I also have a lot of squirrels, that I admit, I feed peanuts. In my pots I put larger rocks, not gravel but 2-3 inch size river rocks. They can't dig them up and the water goes through with no problem. The only time I have any real problems with this is my pots of spring bulbs because the rocks are in the way for the sprouting bulbs and the critters love to dig them up.

Usually when they are burying the peanuts, of course.....

Wanda

Just keep up with #5 to try to defeat the peanut crowd. The eastern grey squirrels have taken over here. I only hear one native red squirrel this year.--Sad....

This will be a problem in developed areas as long as we continue to destroy their habitat. Don't want to come off as a tree-hugger but I live SW of Port Orchard and have lots of squirrels but never a problem in the garden as they have plenty of native habitat.

BTW; poison is likely illegal.

Don't worry about being a tree hugger, I have several large trees in my yard and love them. And yes, even though all of the yards in my neighborhood are in the 1/4-1/2 acre range, the squirrels have no native habitat to call their own.

We just moved here from Colorado last summer. The squirrels in Colorado are nearly twice the size they are here. The funny thing is that the Colorado squirrels never dug in my Colorado gardens and containers, and I mulched everything. The only time they were ever in my beds was to hide Milk Bones from the dog. And these were aggressive squirrels, the type that walk up and demand that you refill the bird feeder.

Thanks for the input,

CG

The pest squirrels here are Eastern Gray Squirrel. Their native habitat is eastern North America. They are not infesting western parks and gardens because their habitat is being destroyed. They migrated across the plains as these were settled, providing them with the same man-made habitat that they now occupy out here.

Know what you mean, I had 2 pots of Hydrangea seedlings, and now have only one. The brown and gray squirrels seem to get along well together on our little acre. And yep, we feed them peanuts as well, that seems to deter them from digging up bulbs in the ground.If possible, you might try digging your pots into the ground so only the rim is visible. I have done this with 25 gallon pots for some of my Hygrangeas cause of tree roots and they dont seem to bother with them, its only when the pots are just set on top of the ground that they become curious and mischeivous!

I use pot shards. The edges are sharp, and they will cut their little feet, of course with 90+ pots, well I hope you don't have that many shards! I used to use river rocks, but they ended up in little piles all over my yard - think Blair Witch Project, almost scary :) The larger sized drain rock never seems to get picked up though, maybe because they aren't so smooth. Anything that is sharp is a good plan, rose canes, blackberry canes, etc. Cayanne is still a good choice, and my squirrels seem to have learned that I do reapply - I used to buy it in bulk, every other week, but this year the number of squirrel holes is way down, and I haven't peppered in a couple of months.