Squirrel/Rabbit Repellent

[Sabina515]

Hi!

I have issues with squirrels and rabbits in my yard. The squirrels ran havoc on my peach trees and dig up my bulbs and eat them. The rabbits love eating my lillies and I hear they like to eat hollyhock, and I have 29 hollyhock I am germinating from seeds. I also have about 30 stargazer lily bulbs. Which they all sprout, but then only left with about 3 lillies.

I have animal repellent granules I am going to try this year, but I am also growing a slew of marigold from seeds. I plan to border the garden beds with marigold. Do the marigold really help keep the squirrels and rabbits at bay?

 

[Chuck]

Why not get 3 garlic bulbs and put all of the garlic cloves into a blender and almost liquify them? Then put all of the garlic into a 2 liter coke bottle and let it sit for a week or two. Then spray it onto the leaves and on the ground around the plants. I have lots of cottontail rabbits and squirrels. This stuff seems to work very well. You might even put in a lot of cayenne pepper for an added kick.

 

[Sabina515]

I like that idea! I will try the garlic spray. I tried regular cayenne before, and it didn't work well, but mixed with garlic I like that idea.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Definitely use oils to mess with their noses. You can stretch the garlic smell with horticultural oil but that might be best on the ground when it gets hot out, not on the plant

 

[skinyea]

you could shoot them

 

[Chuck]

you could shoot them

I have excellent recipes

 

[SilverTree]

For the bulbs, try laying down some chicken wire or something similar so they can't dig up the bulbs. You can either lift them up when the plants start to grow, or you can just leave it lay. Most things seem to grow up through the holes fine.

For the peach three, you might be able to throw bird netting over it. I know that's a pain in the butt if it's a huge tree. Or, you can get a "collar" to put a bit up the tree's trunk to prevent squirrels from climbing it. That won't work if they can jump into the peach tree from other trees or structures, though. I've heard of people using red ornaments in apple trees or on tomato plants so birds peck the hard ornament and get nothing, so when they actual fruit appears they generally don't even bother. I would be curious to see if the same would work against squirrels using peach colored ornaments!

Hopefully the repellants work for you, but some plants I've found I need to put a physical barrier around because animals just really want to eat them, haha!

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Hot stuff like chili will put off squirrels for a bit, but , like humans, they acquire the taste.
When I was having problems with cats I looked on line and found one device that had a movement detector and shot out a high power water spray.