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Squirrel Sabotage of my Wildflower meadow
Stoney2
Posts: 10
Hello all. I am new to the Gardeners World website and to the forums so I hope that my question is in the right place. For the last couple of years I have planted seed mixes attempted to grow a small wildflower meadow in my wooden planter to attract bees and butterflies into the garden and each time after a month or two's growth the whole lot keeps getting dug up by squirrels and my attempts are completely ruined. I really want to make a success of it this year and wondered if there was anyway of keeping the squirrels from digging them up?. Would getting a peanut feeder in the garden give them something else to concentrate on and keep them off of my growing wildflower meadow?. Any help and advice would be gratefully received as i am desperate!.
0
Posts
Hiya Stoney and welcome.
there are "humane" traps which you can use. They catch them alive and then you , erm, do what you want with them. Relocate them to the countryside for example.
Sprinkle holly leaves on you planter
Hostafan, strictly speaking it is illegal to release vermin (assuming grey squirrels) back into the wild after they have been trapped. Kind of limits the choice of what to do with them!
I bumped into somebody in my local homebase a few months ago who said that she caught them in humane traps and released them into her local park. But like BobTheGardener says, I have since found it to be illegal.
Will the bird feeder idea work do you think?.
My mother had terrible problems with squirrels digging up her tulip bulbs in containers and solved this by putting mesh just below the surface of the compost. The mesh she used was specially sold for this purpose and had spiky bits sticking up and pegs to keep it down but it should be pretty easy to improvise something similar. Because the mesh is below the soil level it isn't visible at all.
Holly twigs, pyracantha cuttings and so forth - without these I would have no bulbs at all in the garden or in pots, the b***** squirrels would have them all. They don't like prickles in their paddy paws any more than we do, it really does help.
I have, over many years, spent a great deal of money on 'squirrel proof' bird feeders and not one has ever worked, until this year!! Go to the web site for 'Squirrel Buster' feeders - ours has been up for several months and the darned things have not got into it - Hooray!! I'm about to order a second one, and sing their praises!
I think it will be a case of just plant the seeds and pray they are left alone.
And some people scream when they suggest a grey squirrel cull!