I'll look in to sources locally. Thanks for the suggestion.

I put some chicken wire over the bed till they are established. Sometimes I use some brush to elevate the wire. I don't have squerells out here, but deer. Same effect.

I've found that squirrels don't dig in my pots if I top them with lava rock. I don't know if that would be practical in your case, but thought I'd pass it along.

Well, Roselee, my little guys are daily also moving and rearranging all the river rock poured into the openings in the surrounding rear-side cinder blocks, so that might not stop my family of squirrels from doing their dastardly deed. ;(

It may be the rough texture of lava rock that deters them and not the weight since they are very light. I dunno' ...

Best way I've found to stop squirrel damage is 22 LR and Conibear 110.

They annoy me also. Always digging in my containers and eating most of the bird food. I haven't found any kind of good solution.

Klem1, shooting isn't an option in the city and I don't really want to kill them anyway. Just want to stop the destructive digging. Traps of any kind are more trouble than it's worth to me.

Roselee, I might try your lava rock suggestion in my many potted plants, for sure, and give it a try in these two long beds as well. Certainly worth a try since its pretty cheap and readily available.

I don't like killing things either but if that's what it take's I'll do it. Squirrels are nothing more than large rats with fur on their tails when they nest in the attic,dig plants up,consume food left for other creatures and chew holes in places that cause destruction. Present company excepted,I wager many that kill snakes on sight think squirrels are too cute.

"The only differnece between a rat and a squirrel is the squirell has a better PR firm." The adage goes something like that.

The fox urine (or similar) should be pretty easy to find locally. Last time we used it for rabbits, found it at the local hardware store. Believe have also seen at Academy or Cabela's... though someone else will have to explain what a hunter does with it. Seemed to work pretty well and could be a good solution while the plants get established enough that the squirrels leave them alone. We didn't find it as good as a perpetual solution because the rabbits would wait it out until I forgot to reapply in time and eat everything anyway.

Someone on GW recommended Vicks VapoRub to keep squirrels off of fence tops, tree trunks, feeder poles,.... It does seem to divert them, so could try dabbing some around your concrete border if you already have a jar in the medicine cabinet.

Roselee's lava rock recommendation also seems to work well over newly planted bulbs. Squirrels' attraction to freshly disturbed soil and apparently bone meal had them digging the bulbs out the evening or morning after planting. No problems where I've been able to cover them with lava rock for at least a couple weeks.

Various suggested icky smells don't work for me with squirrels. I've never tried fox urine, but I've sure tried cat urine. Fox urine is pretty pricey. My very urban squirrels are pretty tolerant of things that would scare the daylights out of rural squirrels. They thumb their nose at me.

Traps are no trouble for me, but once you've trapped one, you have to cart it a few miles away to prevent it from coming back. That's 15-20 minutes per squirrel. It adds up.

My husband calls squirrels rats with fluffy tails. LOL And I wouldn't hesitate a moment to shoot them if I were in the country. I love fried squirrel and cream gravy with biscuits for breakfast. That was my paternal granny's favorite breakfast, too. :) But I'm in Temple proper, so no firing weapons inside the city neighborhoods. I'll stick with lava rock and fox urine I think. ;)

If anyone is interested I'll try and pass along tips to increase trapping success. Using Conibear traps instead of live traps will double your success over night but they kill the animal. Knowing where and how to make sets will increase success with any trap. The biggest challenge with kill traps is excluding non-target animals. To have the best success with live traps require's building your own for some animals,squirrels being one.

Hi Buttoni, How about setting up a squirrel feeding station? Maybe they're really hungry and if there was something easier to eat, they would go for that.

Some of those squirrel feeding toys look really fun with a spinning wheel and the antics of them trying to get to the corncob.

It's worth a try, Webuser. I may give that approach a go. But I really think it's just idle digging. They have let up a bit this week. :)

It's Meme.

I've been reading off and on and decided to sign up today when I saw your squirrel issue. Very nice to see pics and read comments on TX gardening!

I turned some unused hanging wire pots upside down over some lily bulbs I just planted that they were digging in. Hope that works.

"Idle digging" may be the operative term here. About 25 years ago, a rancher on the edge of the Lost Pines offered me all the bracken ferns I could dig up (bracken and cattle don't mix). Bracken resents being transplanted, so I was extra careful not to disturb the rhizome while digging. Despite these precautions, only one fern out of 12 survived transplanting from the pines to the containers to the garden. As luck would have it, an inquisitive squirrel just had to follow its nose to the bottom of the new planting hole. Grrrr indeed!

:) Somtimes the tiniest critters can just outmart us, Irving. LOL.

@ Meme, welcome to the forums. I'm a fairly new member here myself (and novice gardener to boot) and am really learning a lot from these "pros". Gleaning much information from their knowledge base.

@ruthz, luckily, the few bulbs I have planted in pots are positioned on my patio and the treed "squirrel end" of my back yard is at some distance from the paved patio area. Guess they just haven't ventured that far down the driveway YET.

Button,I wonder what effect it would have if they witnessed a gardener frying up one of their buddys on the patio. Some ancient warriors ate their enemies to intimindate other enemies.

LOL My husband likes your idea. He was a World History teacher and talks of such things often. :) I could skin one on a hook (like my granny did) right before their very eyes. I thought that just awful at age 10, but those thoughts fled the scene when it came time to eat them for breakfast with biscuits and cream gravy. That I had no problem with. :)

I too am really at war with my local urban squirrels. Have been for many years. I do a lot of trapping and releasing (far away). But I just happened upon this, and I thought folks would get a kick out of it. Those were the days when we LOVED squirrels.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pet-squirrel-craze

So if you give up on fighting the squirrels, see if you can take one in as a pet!

Button your granny sound's like she wasn't one to be trifled with. Many years ago while visting mom,one of her roosters jumped on my 3 year old son. Mom grabbed the rooster and said"you *#^@!&#,I'll teach you to bother that baby" then wrung his neck and made dumplings the next day. Son held the highest respect for his granny from that day forward.

Yes, Klem1, a divorced woman raising 9 children on a farm all by herself during the depression will toughen you up. She supported the family with veggies and produce from her ½ acre garden, a dozen or so chickens, and from butter/milk/cream off her 2 cows. She and the youngest children not yet in school would take the horse-drawn wagon daily to the city farmer's market. My Dad acquired incredible garden "genes" and know how from her and could, off his 2 acre garden in Texarkana, I'm convinced, feed all the hungry in the city. They filled my 15' chest freezer with veggies for the first 15-20 years I was married. I however, did not inherit his gardening talents. Me, I can barely keep flowers alive and have NO luck with vegetable gardening AT ALL. The insects get it all (or eat/kill the plants) before I get to harvest much. I do pretty good with shrubs and trees and that's about it. LOL