Have any of you ever had to deal with ground squirrels chewing up your plants?
We've already lost several large plants due to them chewing the bark off the trunks.
Plants are outdoors, planted in raised beds and planters.
We tried wrapping them with paper and smearing Tanglefoot on it but that doesn't work. They just tunnel underneath the paper and chew the part that's in the ground. We even tried smearing the Tanglefoot all over the top of the wood around the planters thinking they wouldn't want to get it all over them while climbing over and that hasn't stopped them either.
It's illegal to poison them, and there are too many animals here that feed off the squirrels that can be harmed by the poison. My husband shot one once, but felt so bad about it he can't shoot anymore. We're both animal lovers. We just placed a Havahart trap out there to try to trap and relocate them. There are only a few rogue squirrels doing it as I'm sure if they were all doing it we wouldn't have a single plant left. I'm just hoping we don't catch a skunk... LOL
Do any of you have any other ideas we could try? Something we could smear on the lower trunks and stems that won't hurt the plant, but would taste nasty to the squirrels? Or any other ideas?
We're hoping to build a greenhouse soon so we don't have to worry about the squirrels, but until then I need some way to protect my plants. Any ideas are welcome. Thank you.
We've already lost several large plants due to them chewing the bark off the trunks.
Plants are outdoors, planted in raised beds and planters.
We tried wrapping them with paper and smearing Tanglefoot on it but that doesn't work. They just tunnel underneath the paper and chew the part that's in the ground. We even tried smearing the Tanglefoot all over the top of the wood around the planters thinking they wouldn't want to get it all over them while climbing over and that hasn't stopped them either.
It's illegal to poison them, and there are too many animals here that feed off the squirrels that can be harmed by the poison. My husband shot one once, but felt so bad about it he can't shoot anymore. We're both animal lovers. We just placed a Havahart trap out there to try to trap and relocate them. There are only a few rogue squirrels doing it as I'm sure if they were all doing it we wouldn't have a single plant left. I'm just hoping we don't catch a skunk... LOL
Do any of you have any other ideas we could try? Something we could smear on the lower trunks and stems that won't hurt the plant, but would taste nasty to the squirrels? Or any other ideas?
We're hoping to build a greenhouse soon so we don't have to worry about the squirrels, but until then I need some way to protect my plants. Any ideas are welcome. Thank you.