I am having a problem this year that I've never had before. Chipmunks (ground squirrels to some) and squirrels are eating the leaves, breaking the stems, climbing the stems and breaking them, and generally just destroying all my potted maples. I have had them dig in the pots and eat some of the other plants I have growing in the containers, but never this. It's like last year's freeze all over because the first growth of leaves are being eaten as they come out. I put all that I could in the back of my pickup truck and hopefully they won't go onto the bed to eat them. I would like to kill them, with my bare hands if I could catch them. What do I do? Is this something anyone else has had problems with? It's not like mice nibbling in the winter, this is taking off 4-6" branches, which they cannot afford to lose. Kay
Kay, I have been battling squirrels for years. When the population is spiking they will eat stuff that they ignored during less competitive times. It's very challenging.
I have had ongoing problems with squirrels eating the new shoots of japonica. Last year I tied lots of the metallic/holographic tape to the limbs with a repellent (garlic base) sprayed around the base of the trees. When they go at it, they can be devastating. There were no acorns last year, so they will be looking desperately for food. I will go buy more repellent this weekend! Two years ago I was hit very badly, and at first thought it was birds, then my wife saw the squirrels in the trees last year and I acted quickly.
I was kind of afraid there was not a lot I could do. Do the problems ease as there is more for them to eat, like in May? I also discovered there was a deer coming up and eating on them, too, at night. I found hoofprints. I moved my smaller potted plants onto a bench in my little poly greenhouse and the rest are in the back of my truck and will have to come in and out of the garage each day, I guess. I tried putting rat traps at the base of the trees (just two to experiment) figuring I could scare them away, but probably not actually trap them. I don't know if it worked, the traps did get tripped. I'd have to buy quite a few traps if I was going to have one for each tree:) Kay
Try blood. There is a deer repelant made from pigs blood (can't remember the name), or you could get some from the local butcher. The smell of blood freaks out prey animals and triggers their fear response. I've also used blood meal around my hostas with good results. Deer love hostas, but the bed I sprinkled with blood meal had NO deer damage whatsoever. I'm going to try it again this year...
I also thought today about feeding the squirrels away from the trees during the critical time. They will go for the closest feast.
I've HAD IT. Every year, in Pollyanna fashion, I think---maybe THIS spring I'll be left some tulips! Mine came up, were looking good...one bunch had (yep, past tense) about a dozen buds. Other groups were nice and full too. WERE. OK, so a couple days ago all my red tulip buds got nipped off. Gone. (The red ones are always the first to go.) Yellow buds still there. So I look out my front window this afternoon to see a squirrel up in the maple tree munching merrily away on something yellow...petals at the base of the tree...and 3 buds remaining out of about 30 or so. Bad enough that they dig up the bulbs, but to use the plants as a salad bar just burns my stomach lining. ARRGH!!!! Get thee GONE, foul Sciuridae!!! A pox on all your houses!
Last year they ate my coleus like celery stalks. The squirrel would chew one off, climb a few feet up the trunk of a nearby oak, then hang upside-down munching the stalk. I gave up on tulips long ago. Try daffodils - they're poisonous, so nothing will touch them. NOTHING! :-)
It's so nice to know you're not alone...I will try the bloodmeal. Could that be sprinkled in the potted maples? Also, I agree Kaitain, the daffodils are the way to go. My husband loved tulips, but every year they come up, get eaten, and then I'm left with that ugly foliage to deal with for weeks. Kay
Gosh guys, my heart aches when I read what you go through: in addition to verticillium, pseudomonas, aphids; etc, that we all share, you have to deal with squirrels, deer, chipmunks, bisons?, .. you name it!. In North America you need an extra dose of mapleholism to overcome all that and still keep buying and planting maples. Courage!!! Gomero
Squirrels crave sugar. ( Long winter for the babies) Before horticulture, they used to nibble the new shoots of maple trees to get sap running and either drink it or wait until it congealed to sugar and take that as nourishment. You will find that squirrels and chipmunks react favorably to being fed like the rest of us. Try putting out some treats for them and see if they don"t stop attacking your prizes. I have been successfully feeding squirrels in my yard for over 20 years. Cheers Bob
I shall ask my daughter (who is artistic) to inscribe these words in decorative script, frame them, and hang them above my desk -- next to the window through which I view the horrific carnage visited upon the maples and other plants by moose, deer, squirrels, porcupines, raccoons, wild turkeys, and the neighbor's dog. And the neighbor's daughter, who tramples many things while chasing the dog. We also have predators -- coyotes and foxes and the occasional bobcat, along with owls and hawks and falcons and bald eagles and (some of us believe) a lonely mountain lion. And a redneck with many semi-automatic weapons. Amazingly, in the midst of all that, some plants survive. Fewer than one might like. And the weather is not often kind. But I've never seen such enthusiastic gardeners as the people around here.
This is all great! My Bouvier--who passed a couple of years ago--would eat all the coleus. She absolutely loved them and all the spices. As she passed by, she'd just turn her big head and chomp down and they'd be gone. Thank goodness it was never the maples. Sugar is a new idea for the pesky tree rodents. Actually, since we had a crash in acorn production last year, I am seeing fewer squirrels this spring. No bison yet either, Gomero, still hoping for that.
To add insult to injury, my coworker/neighbor cheerfully informed me today that she has just MASSES of lovely tulips! "I've never had a problem with the squirrels eating them." What gives???!!! She lives around the corner from me: if I stood in my back yard and hollered, she'd probably hear me. (I feel like doing just that.) Why are MY tulips so tasty? Why are hers not? ---I warned her to look out...now that the squirrels have eaten all of my tulips, they'll have to go find more. Like, hers. ---Anyone out there have a theory as to what is up with this? And no, she uses no repellents, physical barriers, poisons, or shotguns. ???????? Hey, jacquot! Speakin' of hollering distance, I was born and raised within same of you: in Glen Cove, just across L.I. Sound.
Ohhh Come on you guys. How could you dislike those cute, animated little fur ball w/ tails. He, He, He. This thread gave me the best laugh I've had in a week!!!!!! We have "Bob", Earl, and "Manbeast". (don't ask, the kids named it) They climb up the slider screen when the feeder is empty. We feed them rather well. Squirrel trail mix and they also like the crushed sunflower seeds we put out for the birds. Just a little variety. Annnnnnnd we have tulips! Now if you want to talk about horrid beasts let try moles!!!!!!! These are the ones that - don't eat but, rearrange my tulips. barb
I had a real problem with squirrels digging in the pots of my containerized maples. After posting a message here last year, several people suggested putting rocks on the soil around the maples. I had a lot of small smooth river rocks in my garden, so I put them around all of my potted JMs. The squirrels haven't bothered my maples since then, except for the one tree I didn't put rocks around. Now if I could just keep the deer away from the plants. In the past, they have only bothered my Acer japonicum varieties -- Acontifolium and Lovett. However, this spring they have been nibbling on my A. palmatums, although so far it has only been a few bites rather than serious damage. Apparently they don't like the taste of my Palmatums, but I sprayed all of my JMs with deer repellent just to make sure they don't develop a taste.
I was just re-reading one of Henry Mitchell's "Earthman" books -- he was the longtime garden columnist for the Washington Post -- and he says that in the end, the only way he was able to solve his squirrel problem was to feed them so heavily that they lost their appetite for all the tasty stuff growing in the garden. Which probably meant he was feeding half the squirrels in NW Washington, DC.
Because squirrels are territorial you should end up with one or two in the vicinity of your home that come to feed on the treats you leave them. They will chase off the other squirrels. When a new bunch are born one or two of them stay behind and the parents move about 100 yards or more away from the original Drey. It seems to have something to do with the "original" grand plan to dissemanate seeds and thus trees across the land and worked quite well until the ninetenth century when the human population began expanding and demanding it all. I am not familiar with the Large Blacks or Gray squirrels but assume some naturalist can jump in here and help me. Bob
The European red squirrels that visit my garden never cause any problems, they are very shy and impossible to approach. They mainly feed on acorns and other seeds they find. In fact it seems they would rather prefer Camembert and Foie-gras to those tasteless Japanese maples. Gomero
Ours are very gentle and easy to tame. http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/vRM90I-NR4OxcAiV7eYE_g?feat=directlink
Wow, this has been a fascinating thread. Bob, thanks for the sugar idea, it makes sense. I think part of the reason I have had such a problem this year is because we had a gigantic acorn and hickory (especially hickory) crop last year and there are LOTS of babies and healthy squirrels looking for food right now. Another question for the squirrel experts: I am assuming that as more leafs out and there is more food available that this problem will ease? I took my maples out of the back of the pickup truck and put them next to the house on my front porch and they haven't eaten anything yet. The digging in the pots drives me crazy, too. Now I have noticed that a thick layer of pine bark mulch also keeps them from digging in them. I don't know why, rocks seem like they would be better. Kay
Hi Kay Glad to help. These observations and generalizations I have offered may not be specific to your situation but have a reasonable grounding in animal behavior. During a long winter the squirrels use up their closest caches of food. As spring occurs and the ground starts letting off odors they find it more difficult to locate these sources and of course many of these begin to either sprout or rot. That seems to be the worst season for gardeners and their young plants. The squirrels will dine on tender root materials and shoots when they are hungry and obviously less so when they are not. Knowing this gives you the easiest defense for their behavior. Good luck Bob
Kay, My theory is that artificially increasing forage for squirrels creates an out of balance squirrel population. Feeding animals in locations where nutrition resources are scarce generates an even larger population with the same scarce resources. Maybe in an urban location the dynamics are different. On my deck squirrels have munched clean through 4-5 yr old tree trunks. I think now they have become imbued with the 100th monkey phenomenon and are far more circumspect. Rocks are definitely better than bark in deterring the digging. I'm betting that lead is better than sugar in deterring their destructive habits.
Has anyone tried K4's suggestion of blood meal or actual blood from the butcher? It sounds intriguing and likely.
I think this is the way I see it with my potted maples (as per Bob's sugar theory), correct me if I'm wrong. Since my potted maples from the garage are sprouting at least two weeks before the other trees in the yard, at the moment they are the only source of hungry squirrels. Once the other trees start to leaf out, they will turn to them (hopefully). I know in the past we have watched the tips of the oaks and other tree tips fall to the ground as they bite them off and always wondered why the did that. We assumed they were for nests and they just dropped them. Now, the big question is if this only will continue until the other trees leaf out or not. If so, I wouldn't have a problem feeding them sugar until this happened, probably in about a week or so. I wouldn't feel like it would increase the entire squirrel population or anything, it would be a short-term fix. Any thoughts? Kay P.S. We went away for the weekend and the chipmunks dug giant holes in many pots. I'm going to go for rocks next weekend. I can't imagine how I will have a potted maple left if this keeps up.
