Hello, Mary. Maybe you can start taking small steps; introduce one or two hydrangeas to see what happens. I too have squirrels in the neighborhood and they do not seem terribly interested in my hydrangeas, azaleas and camellias (at least, not so far). However, I do not have acorn producing trees where the hydrangeas are.

Thanks so much for your reply, Louis.

I'm just remembering now a small apartment with hydrangeas across its front. There were plenty of squirrels there that never ever bothered the hydrangeas.

Squirrels definitely never bother azaleas and camellias... so, I think we'll go for it with hydrangeas. Not many, though, as we often suffer from droughts here. Not this past year, but probably 9 out of 10 years we do have droughts, often severely. Keeping our rhododendrons and azaleas watered hasn't been easy. So we need to go slowly on adding more plants that aren't drought tolerant. But I've always loved the looks of blooming hydrangeas, and always wished for some to cut. We're going to go for it!

Best wishes,
Mary

I have lots of squirrels and lots of fairly new hydrangeas. In general I haven't found that the squirrels bother the hydrangeas.

About two weeks ago however I had an "incident." I brought home a number of plants and had their pots spread out around my new bed to see where I wanted to plant them. I used a very small Masja Hydrangea that I had in a pot as a surrogate for another hydrangea that I would have to transplant.

From across the yard I noticed that a squirrel was exploring each pot - they always seem to investigate something new. I thought it was cute seeing it jump up on each pot to check out the plant. I wasn't worried because I hadn't had problems with them before. Later I went closer to the pots and the squirrel was on the Masja pot. I noticed it doing something so I looked closer. Turns out the squirrel had torn off 6 or so leaves that I found on the soil. It also looked like it had torn off a whole shoot. Don't know why it had done this - it didn't seem to be eating the leaves, just causing destruction.

I was going to post this separately to see if anyone else had had this happen, or knew of any explanation for it. When I saw your post I thought I'd alert you. You don't have to worry in general, but may want to be a little protective of very small hydrangeas in pots. It's funny - I've had my two small potted Masjas on the other side of the house most of the summer and the squirrels and other creatures have seemingly left them alone.

Squirrels are uninterested in hydrangea, but given a pot, they will dig and dig or bury. Cover the top with some chicken wire or sharp rocks will discourage such behavior.

Paul