What's a 'squinnie'...? Part squirrel, part bunnie? I don't think they can breed with each other.

Don B.

We call them chipmunks here. I have one living by my hosta garden and don't ever see them chewing at the leaves nor are any of my leaves chewed up by anything. They are so easy to train to eat from your hand too. I would train the one we have but since we have a cat I try to encourage it leave our yard altogether.

I've never heard the term squinnie before, either.

We have loads of chipmunks here. The dig holes all over the place but Idon't have any problems with them destroying plants. They do not eat roots like those horrible voles, but I worry that their holes and tunnels aid the voles. Some people complain about them uprooting potted plants and things, but I havent had an issue with that either. They don't eat hosta foliage either.

I see them in the mountains here in Colorado, but I've never seen 'em in the suburbs. Cute little guys. Subtract a couple 'cuteness' points if they eat hosta.

Don B.

Hate chipmunks! They have tunneled under our front path so extensively that the flagstones have shifted and dropped over an inch where the walk meets the front porch. Used to be level- not any more. Grrrrr.

I refer to squirrels as "hooligans". And I have a *lot* of them.

Quite a few of my hosta are potted, and they can make a huge mess while looking for the ever-elusive acorn. I use pine straw as mulch in my garden, and you can definitely tell when the acorn hunt is on - they dig all over the place. I will say the most direct damage they've ever done to a hosta was to expose a few roots.

Unfortunately, I'm also cursed with chipmunks. They don't annoy me as much as the hooligans do, nor do they do any damage to my hosta - potted or planted.

I am not sure whether Squinnies is a local slang for them.. or I have been using the term so long people around me have given up..and just started using it themselves !

Chipmunks were first encountered in MA in 2004. Never saw a real one (Alvin does not count) until then. Among other things, they love blueberries. Never had a bad experience with them, but DH had to scoop up multiple buckets of dirt they dug from behind his 4' high 100 ' long rock wall down one side of the driveway.

We do not have chipmunks in south Alabama. Hmmmm, I better qualify that, since I am no seer......TO MY KNOWLEDGE.....we do not have chipmunks..... Heaven knows, we have enough critters as it is without adding them to the mix.

.....although I must acknowledge, it is a lot more socially acceptable to say you have CHIPMUNKS, than to say you have a problem with RATS. :)

beautiful gardens open to public in NW Arkansas, on a bluff over the White R below Beaver Dam "Blue Spring Gardens". They were planting marigolds around the main spring and one simply disappeared before our eyes. It was pulled into the ground. I saw it go in. A minute or two later a ground squirrel popped its head up through the hole made by the disappearing marigold. I doubt if they could do it to hostas but it does reflect on their diet, doesn't it?

Theresa

Oh My Theresa, that would have scared the living daylight out of me!

Our chipmunks scamper through the gardens and keep breaking the lower leaves of some of my hostas.

Gesila

Mocc, i presume you meant that YOU first encountered chipmunks in MA in 2004. believe me, they have been here longer than that! i am 67 and well remember being delighted with the cute little critters back before i started going to school. one (some) lived under our back porch for several years.

they are very pretty, but i am less than thrilled to have them around the property now -- they don't bother my gardens, but have wreaked havoc with my old New England stone retaining wall with their tunneling. grrrrr

I just went to a garden tour yesterday and saw an interesting thing. There was a bucket sitting out away from a wall with a board leading from the wall to the bucket. We asked the lady about it. They have a terrible problem with chipmunks tearing things up. They put a about 6 inches of water in the bucket with a small amount of sunflower seeds. The chipmunks go after the seeds and drown. She said it works great.