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Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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Posted by goldenvocals 8a NE LA (My Page) on Tue, May 4, 04 at 16:30
| We have a very large yard and a large deck on a lake in NE LA and squirrels are digging in our potted plants and flowers. They are destroying some of them. Does anyone know how to keep them out of our pots? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| I have found that a little blood meal sprinkled around is very helpful. Don't put much because of the high nitrogen content. But, then, it does not take much. |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| Try cayenne pepper. Too bad I didn't put it in my pots in which I had planted my rare acorns. The little devils worked their way into the cage and destroyed everyone. I have used cayenne pepper and black pepper. Moth balls, also. |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| They are going to HAVE to associate pain with your plants. The dangerous ground red pepper might be better than cayenne as it is stronger but a nice well made (not toylike) pellet rifle (Beeman, RWS) will drop them dead as a hammer. They will learn via their dead brethren that your "area" is verbotten. They are not stupid. Hope this helps, Wilson |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| I don't know about the pepper idea. With our heavy rains, we'd have to constantly reapply. But the squirrels have left the birdseed alone that I've treated with cayenne powder; so, it seems it could be an effective deterrent. My parents are prolific gardeners, and they love to feed the wildlife. The red squirrels were never a problem. Once grey squirrels moved into the area, they seemed to chase the reds away. Now, there seem to be all greys along with "hybrid" squirrels...greys with red tails, for example. Due to the damage they cause in the garden, we've all begun to feel rather murderous towards the creatures we used to enjoy watching. They don't seem to be eating the plants, just digging them up and knocking them off of things. Once the greys came in, they started digging in all the potted plants...mainly uprooting them. They also plant acorns fairly deeply in the pots. They knocked all the bromeliads down that my parents had hung from brackets here and there along the trunks of trees in the garden. Nothing deterred the squirrels from their mischief and destruction...until my parents started covering the exposed soil in the pots with oval river stones they've collected on trips to the mountains. No more acorn seedlings or uprooted plants. As for the bromeliads, I think my parents plan to find a firmer way to mount the bromeliads so that they can't be knocked off--rather than hanging the bromeliads from brackets and lattices, wiring them to the items so that they can't be knocked or tugged off. Good luck! |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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- Posted by jim2k mississippi (My Page) on
Mon, May 9, 05 at 16:19
| Try the pepper it should work you may try feeding them with corn they would like that I enjoy watching them as well as plants Good luck Jim |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| I pop mine with a bb gun. Don't kill 'em, but it stings like Hell - they've not only left the pots, but also the nearby bird feeders. Only EVERY here-and-there a brave probably 'newbie' tries it. Worked when hot pepper didn't... sea ya
tami |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| Take plastic forks and stick them in the pots tine side up close enough that the squirrels can't walk between them. That has kept squirrels out of my planters. An alternative: When you are planting, place chicken wire on top of the soil and cut a hole in the chicken wire to put the plant through. Cover with mulch. |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| When the digging becomes a real problem in potted plants or the garden I use Katie's method. Scatter river rocks on top of the soil in potted plants or strategically place larger rocks around plants in the garden. Works like a charm! |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| I've used bamboo skewers inserted with the pointy end facing out to keep cats from using my beds as restrooms, I'd assume thst would work on Squirrels also. I handfeed squirrels in my back yard and have found them to be little problem, of course I'm not plantng rare acorns. |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| Try Flaked Red Pepper (like you put on pizza) it doesn't dissolve as easily as the ground stuff. |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| I realize this is 6 years later in this thread, but maybe someone else will answer. I have a squirrel problem (digging in my pots) and am just afraid to pot hot pepper flakes. Won't that burn the plants?? I have citrus trees in pots, among other things. Just worried when I start watering them and the flakes go into the soil if it'll damage the roots. |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| Mikalaka, plants are used to dealing with chemicals from other plants. And the agent which causes the burning sensation in Pepper breaks down fairly rapidly. It's not like the evil chemicals being manufactured by Humans, which apparently can linger for centuries. When we lied in Mississippi, we bought Powdered Cayenne in the economy size, and it worked OK. Wish I'd thought about Pepper FLAKES! But Squirrels were up in our oak tree, chewing the branchlets, and making a huge mess, year-round. Because of them, we had leaf litter year-round, beneath that otherwise lovely tree (dead leaves would cling to the chewed branches, and a few would fall with every wind). So, we got on the Internet, and found a squirrel trap made by tying many Fishing Line nooses to a Bamboo pole. We leaned the pole against the tree... the Squirrels scampered up...smelled a bit of Peanut Butter, nosed around, and occasionally hung themselves. We'd have about one hangin' a week. I believe it's called a SQUIRREL POLE. I wouldn't try nooses in Louisiana, though, since someone could beat you nearly to death, and get off scott-free, using 'Noose Symbolism' as an excuse. Oh, and when starting plants in pots, we'd use thin bamboo pieces (Bracy's "Screening Bamboo", which is non-invasive), spaced less than an inch apart, stuck into the soil, all around the pot's perimeter. I didn't expect it to keep out the squirrels (and the Feral Kittens who'd pass through our garden), but it did work. The pencil-diameter Bamboo stuck up about a foot from the soil's surface. |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| I thought I had corrected a typo and an omission in my last post....but the unedited version went up, instead. Second paragraph: 'lied' should be 'lived'. And I looked up Capsaicin, the 'hot' agent in Peppers, and Wikipedia says that it is an irritant primarily to MAMMALS. So, it should not affect plants much at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| These poss have been so helpful. I'm trying the stone method right now but I've got little sprouts coming up an I don't want to squish them, so on those I'm trying the pepper flakes. So far, so good. The little buggers used to come every night, but it's been 3 days and the plants are untouched! Thank you! |
RE: Squirrels are digging in my plant pots. HELP!
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| Wow, hang em posh9? New one on me :) Not to get off topic, six years old or not, but my father used to nail a large mouse trap to a tree, bait it with peanut butter and well there you go. Leslie |
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