I've reached the conclusion that all species of crocus are on the dinner menu for squirrels and chipmunks regardless of what the catalogs and websites say. I've never been able to keep them from year to year. You could plant them in a small cage with openings of a size that would keep the animals out but would allow the plant to squeeze through. This is a pain for planting a lot of crocus bulbs though. I think the best plan is to plant another type of bulb.

For me, tulips are out. Deer just mow those down overnight. The ones that I've had the best luck with are daffodils, hyacinth, grape hyacinth, dutch iris, and scilla. Here's the pros and cons of each

Daffodils (narcissi) - No animal will touch them. Come in the standard trumpet look but also come in other looks that may appeal to those who hate daffodils. You're stuck with yellow for the most part although quite a few come partially in white and you can buy some with an orange or salmon-colored trumpet. My personal favorite is a double called Golden Ducat

Hyacinth - No animal will touch them. They smell heavenly. Just a few of them can perfume an entire yard. Come in most colors. They are perennials but they never look as full after the first year of blooming and the fragrance is not as intense. This sparseness in the bloom continues to get worse over time.

Grape Hyacinth (muscari) - No animal will touch them. They look great during bloom if planted en masse. Come mainly in shades of blue, white, and yellow. The spaghetti foliage is a nuisance. It's not very tidy and you have to deal with it in spring and fall. These are very reliable bloomers year after year.

Dutch iris - I haven't had a problem with animals but I'm not sure if they truly hate these or not. They come in mainly shades of blue, white, and yellow and I think there is a pink one but I'm not sure. The ones that I have are an intense blue that bloom earlier than advertised. These are very well-behaved for me. They bloom and I don't see the plant again until the following year.

Scilla - I haven't had a problem with animals eating these either but I'm not sure if they hate them or just haven't found them. They come in mainly blue or white. They're cute and bloom early but it takes a lot of them to make a statement. I haven't had any luck with them multiplying.

TreeOracle has given you a great summary. For bulbs with messy foliage, I am trying to plant them where emerging perennials will hide the foliage, so that may help with the grape hyacinth.

A couple others that I plant seem to return well, though voles rather than deer or squirrels are the problem for me:

Alliums - There are varieties both large (Globemaster, Mars, giganteum, Mt. Everest) and small (moly) that won't get eaten by the critters, though they bloom in very late spring to early summer.

Galanthus - Snowdrops return for me, and I have seen them in old home sites as well, so I expect they would do well for you, though I am not positive.

Reticulated Iris - These are tiny, extremely early irises (blue, white, yellow) which usually return for several seasons for me, though 4 or 5 years seems to be near the limit. I am not sure if that is due to the voles eating them or that they don't perennialize well. The stiff narrow foliage continues to elongate after the flowers fade before dying back, which bothers some folks, but I find it tidier than daffodil foliage.

Glory of the Snow, Chionodoxa forbesii - I plantedthis in a previous garden. It came back fine, but I didn't have any issues with critters there. It has small pale blue flowers.

My Scilla do multiply. I have S. siberica.

Tulips - I have found that many of the species tulips I've grown perennialize well (T. tarda is a particular favorite), as well as some of the Darwin tulips and Kaufmanniana tulips.

Many bulbs like good drainage, so I sometimes add gravel to the soil around bulbs to discourage digging critters, or just plant them in the most gravely areas of the garden. I do sometimes plant in hardware cloth baskets, and I think there may be repellents you can put on the bulbs to discourage munching of them, but I don't know of any means to keep squirrels or deer from eating the flowers. I often plant a mix of bulbs in the same hole, with some of the more appealing bulbs, such as tulips, mixed in among the poisonous ones like daffodils.

Edited to add: I find that tulips, and some other bulbs, are more likely to perennialize if planted a bit deeper than recommended.

I feel your pain, Lalala! All my crocus bulbs get eaten (voles are the most likely culprit), but I too have had great luck with daffodils which spread and thrive. My philosophy is to go with nature's law of the fittest. If a plant is happy here even to the point of becoming invasive, then it becomes a keeper. If there is an easy intervention for a struggling plant, such as moving to a spot with more or less shade or better drainage, I will do it. However if requires planting crocus bulbs inside many tiny wire cages.. well it isn't happening here! So as much as I loved my crocus flowers during their brief stay before becoming vole food, I have bid them farewell, and concentrate on daffodils which I also love. Daffs are cheerful and sunny, and by the time they are done blooming, the irises (another flower that is very hardy here) are not far behind.

I have good luck with the tommasinianus crocuses. Perhaps it has to do with my sandy loam soil or with the fact that the squirrels and chipmunks here eat well so they don't bother with unpleasant tasting bulbs. I would never bother with the wire cages - if the bulbs get eaten move on. Daffodils and scilla are successful for me.

Claire

Thank you for all these suggestions! Still no sign of the "vernus vanguard"--I think squirrels, chimpmunks, and voles probably ate them all. I will look into all your other choices!

that's why I stopped planting them. That, and 2 other things: if they were open and it rained or snowed significally they were mush in a day and tsecond the foliage NEVER dies. Ok I guess in a woodsy place but in the perennial bed they are a mess. wads of green ugly green leaves lying flat until they become wads of brown stuff.

I've gotten interested in native bulbs. Nodding Onion flowers are actually prettier before they bloom...the stalk bends over like a candy cane. Most animals avoid them.

Liatris have a nice purple color and are pretty easy to find and grow.

I do love crocus, as well as snowdrops (galanthus), aconites, etc. I know many of them are delicate, and yes messy if the weather doesn't co-operate, but I just love seeing their cheerful blooms before any other plant has waked up in the spring. I even like how you can't see them from a distance, not unless you come close and look a bit harder....

I do find many of these bulbs get eaten in my area, or damaged somehow enough to prevent proper blooming if they do come up. So I just bought a dozen of those suet cages (meant for birds) on sale, and I'm going to plant 3 or 4 mixed bulbs in each one and see how that works out. NHBabs' idea to add in gravel for drainage and animal discouragement sounds like a great trick to try too.