How to Keep Squirrels from Eating Flowers?

There's no question about squirrels being cute, but surely a gardener will not be able to notice that as he or she sees the lovely petunias and tulips in the garden being devoured by these furry critters. Squirrels begin to become terrible pests when they invade gardens and feed on flowers that gardeners keep either for money or for personal pleasure. As pests, gardeners constantly look for newer and more efficient ways to exterminate them or at least to drive them out of the garden.

Two of the most common options employed by gardeners are the use of traps and the use of pepper sprays. However, because traps are not really that effective and pepper sprays also have issues with the health of the flowers in the garden, the need for other methods have become more and more pronounced over time. Moreover, the clamour of animal welfare protectors to spare the lives of squirrels have also contributed to the growing campaign of developing gentler and kinder ways to keep the squirrels from damaging flowers in the garden while not costing the gardener too much money.

One way of keeping pest squirrels from eating flowers is to eliminate their food sources anywhere near the garden. Of course, squirrels do not just find the garden by mere intuition. There has to be something that led them into the garden and in most cases these are leftovers and garbage which people recklessly dump around. For example, since it is so common for some families to conduct gatherings in the garden, a barbeque party perhaps, it is also not surprising that some leftovers from such parties are left just lying on the garden bed or someplace close. These things are very tempting invitations to squirrels to come in and invade a garden. Once there, they would find themselves in a place where everything would seem too edible and flowers often have tasty bulbs which squirrels happen to like so much. If you want to avoid seeing this scenario, you might as well be more conscious about your surrounding environment. It is not even enough for you to keep your own garden clean, you also have to look after what's around your garden. If squirrels happen to come close to your garden because of garbage left sitting there, they might come into your garden too.

Squirrels like to nibble on grills, so do not leave used grills sitting on the ground or better yet, just clean after your mess. Garbage cans have to kept covered because squirrels are easily attracted by smell and if you happened to dump food into your garbage can, squirrels might just come hopping into your garden and you do not want that to happen because your flowers will surely be the collateral damage. You also need to be particular about the food you feed your pets. Squirrels also eat pet food so be quick in cleaning after spilled pet food in the garden and be sure to empty pet food bowls when not in use. If you keep a bird for a pet, find a way to hang your bird feeders somewhere far from your flowers and make sure that it is not accessible to squirrels.

Apart from simple cleaning, you also have to protect your flowers somehow. Squirrels attack freshly planted flower bulbs because these are much easier to dig. So, if you want to protect your young bulbs, all that you have to do is to make a wire-mesh cage around each flower bulb. The process might be a little painstaking but it is worth it if what’s at stake is the safety of your flowers, right? Anyway, you just have to cut 5 half an inch squares from a hardwire mesh sheet and make a box out of the squares. Leave one face of the box open and cover the bulb with the box with the open-face down. Make sure that you leave enough space for the flower stems to freely grow. To keep the boxed wire mesh in place, you just have to weigh it down with some decorative rocks or broken potteries.

For added protection you can also plant strong-scented herbs in your garden. Squirrels do not like the smell of Oregano and Rosemary so growing them with your flowers will definitely drive the squirrels away. If you do not want to grow these herbs in a flower garden, you can improvise by packing these herbs in bags made from thin fabric like cheesecloth. You can place the bags around the flowers which you can no longer protect with the wire mesh boxes. This method is also safe because it does not harm your pets if they accidentally bump into one of these bags, unlike what happens when you use chemical repellents. Moreover, these bags are also not harmful to the squirrels themselves, so you can be sure that you are harming nobody.

If you do not have time to prepare those herb bags and want to devote all your time to your flowers, you can also buy blood meal from a gardening store and use it to repel squirrels in your garden. Blood meal has this offensive smell that squirrels cannot stand. All that you need to do is sprinkle blood meal around your flowers and your flowers will be safe. However, there are some people who also find the smell of blood meal offensive, so if you can find time, just go with the herb bag.

When it comes to squirrel control, you have to remember that the most basic of methods still applies. Wild squirrels will never have the chance to feed on your petunias and tulips if you have done your job in securing your garden in the first place. Of course, effective commercial squirrel control products might just come out in the market someday, but as of the time being, focus on the simple tips provided in this article and you will see that squirrels are not that difficult to control after all.