How to Protect Bulbs from Squirrels

Autumn is the classic bulb planting season. But no sooner have you planted those crocuses and tulips then some helpful squirrel comes along and digs them up! While I’m all for encouraging and protecting wildlife, you probably don’t want a plundering posse helping themselves to your prized plants. So if this is a problem for you, here’s how to protect bulbs from squirrels.

Not All Bulbs Are At Risk

One way to avoid squirrel problems is to not plant bulbs they like. The good news is that there are plenty of Spring flowering bulbs which are not on a squirrel’s menu! They don’t like daffodils, hyacinths, grape hyacinths, irises, bluebells, alliums. Indeed many of the bulbs you might plant now for a riot of Spring colour which I blogged about last week, are a no no to squirrels, they’re either poisonous to them or they don’t like the taste of them.

Indeed there are only two main bulbs squirrels really like – tulips and crocuses. And when it comes to crocuses I gather they don’t like the early flowering violet coloured Crocus tommasinianus. But I for one am not prepared to live without tulips or only have certain crocuses in order to avoid squirrel problems.

So, if you’re like me, we still need to know how to protect bulbs from squirrels.

How to Protect Bulbs From Squirrels

1. Protect With Wire

One way to keep squirrels out is to protect your freshly planted bulbs with wire. If you’ve bulbs in pots, create a wire cover and weight it down on the top of them. Mr F-W created a permanent frame for me to use each year. But if you’re not an ace at woodwork and don’t have such handy skills at your disposal, a piece of chicken wire (or similar) weighted down with a brick will do. I appreciate that this isn’t very attractive, but once the bulbs start growing, they’re less attractive to squirrels, so the protection can be removed.

You can also use chicken wire to protect bulbs planted in the ground. Simply, plant your bulbs to the required depth, covering with soil as usual. Then place the wire over the area and stake it down. Then cover it with soil or mulch. If you want to add a layer of additional protection, fold the wire down at the sides a few inches, a bit like a wire table cloth, to prevent the squirrels digging underneath it. Again you can (carefully) remove the wire once things are growing, though if it’s well hidden under soil/mulch I’m not sure I’d bother. The bulbs will happily grow through the holes in the chicken wire.

I’ve also seen some people create a wire basket/cage for their bulbs and plant the whole thing under the ground. For smaller groups of planting you could use the baskets used for planting pond plants, simply covering the top with chicken wire.

2. Dig Deep

I have to admit, while I use wire to protect pots, (as it’s easy) when planting crocuses and tulips in my beds and borders or in my lawn I don’t bother with wire.

For tulips, I dig deep.

For instance, in my raised tulip bulb bed, which features literally hundreds of tulips, I knew I was laying on a veritable bulb buffet! But I didn’t want to faff about with oceans of chicken wire. I carefully researched how to protect bulbs from squirrels and found that many people have had success by simply planting their bulbs deeper than the recommended depths.

So in the case of my tulips, I planted them in big trenches almost a foot deep. Squirrels are not the world’s best diggers. They won’t keep digging beyond 6 inches. Furthermore, this deep planting is good for the tulips too. When planted deeply, tulips are less likely to try to reproduce and are more likely to flower for year after year. I also find deeper planting anchors my tulips more effectively. It’s less likely that they’ll be blown over in any winds.

3. Get Your Timing Right

I’ve read that bulbs are most at risk from squirrels during the first year that they are planted. That’s when the smell of the bulb most attracts them. And actually some say it’s just the first four weeks after planting that you need to get them through. Others have added that it’s early Autumn (October) when bulbs are most at risk. This is when squirrels are most active collecting food for their stores, ahead of the Winter. This is yet another reason why I plant my tulips in the second half of November and sometimes December. Planting them during these months not only makes them less vulnerable to squirrels but it also helps tulips avoid the fungal disease, tulip fire which can exist in soil until the colder weather kills it off.

4. Gravel

Crocuses do not tend to thrive if you plant them extremely deeply and you can’t plant them late.

But don’t despair, there are other techniques you can deploy (which I’d also use for tulips, to be doubly secure). Firstly, when planting your bulbs in beds, add a little sharp gravel to the soil around the bulbs. When scavenging, squirrels will be deterred if they come across jagged material. Crushed shells may work too.

5. Keep it Clean

I often find that when planting bulbs, the papery outers of the bulbs can be dislodged. If I buy a packed of bulbs I also may have a few duff (damaged or soft) bulbs which I don’t bother planting. Squirrels are a like Miss Marple, on the hunt for bulb clues! So don’t make it easy for them. Put all such debris immediately in the bin, out of sight.

How to Protect Bulbs From Squirrels – Smelly Solutions

6. Garlic & Chilli

Squirrels are sensitive to strong odours and garlic is one they don’t like. So if you’re wondering how to protect bulbs from squirrels, and you’ve tulips and crocuses in a border, you could plant the odd garlic plant within the planting.

But not everyone wants to plant garlic (me included). So another option for harnessing the power of garlic is to make a garlic spray.

All you need is water, vinegar and chopped garlic. (Even I, with my extremely limited cooking skills can make this!) Mix the three ingredients into a spray bottle and leave it to infuse for a few hours. Then you spray this mixture lightly on your bulbs (you don’t want to drench them and make them soggy) before planting. If you’ve mixture left over, after planting you could also spray the area regularly for a few weeks, just to deter the squirrels while your bulbs are at their most vulnerable.

Apparently squirrels don’t like chilli either. I’ve also seen people who are planting decent expanses of bulbs, sprinkle chilli flakes over the bulbs before covering them with soil.

7. Plant Crown Imperials and Alliums

On the scent front, the musky smell of crown imperials (Fritillaria imperialis) bulbs can mask the scent of other bulbs nearby. So plant a crown imperial bulb say, every 2 feet, in a bed of tulip or crocus bulbs. You will not only get spectacular clusters of bell-shaped flowers from the Crown Imperials in late-spring, but they will act as bulb equivalent of a body guard to your precious tulips and crocuses.

Alliums, with their oniony aroma also work well. I’ve a swathes of Allium Purple Sensation in my tulip bed (above) and I’m sure they helped confound the squirrels.

8. Ground Cover & Perennials

When you plant Spring bulbs among established shrubs or perennials, especially ground cover plants, you not only get a lovely burst of early colour while you wait for your perennials to get going, but the perennials make it harder for squirrels to find your bulbs. I often adopt this technique with tulips in containers too. For example I plant them with roses and clematis.

How to Protect Bulbs From Squirrels – Feed Them

9. Fertilisers

In my hunt for advice on how to protect bulbs from squirrels, I’ve come across some conflicting reports. Some people say that fertilisers such as bonemeal and fishblood may attract squirrels. In my experience they certainly attract digging dogs! However, others say the aroma confuses and deters squirrels and therefore liberally apply in areas where bulbs are planted.

I haven’t adopted this technique as for me the jury is out on this one.

10. Feed Them

I also feel unsure about this following piece of advice. Apparently in the White House garden, where they plant some 12,000 tulip bulbs every year, they erect feeding stations for squirrels near by, filled with peanuts. These are maintained for the first three weeks after the bulbs have been planted. The White House gardeners view this as the key danger time for the bulbs. As a result, the tulips apparently are unscathed.

However, I would worry that putting up feeding stations will simply attract more squirrels into my garden. Indeed I take trouble to make our bird feeders as squirrel-unfriendly as possible! Don’t feel too sorry for the squirrels, the marauding mammals still manage to raid them! So I guess this one is up to you.

11. Feed Naturally

There are two ways in which you can feed creatures naturally in your garden and therefore reduce the threat from squirrels to your bulbs. First up is, if you’ve space to do so, provide other food sources for the squirrels themselves.

For instance, a carefully placed Corylus (planted well away from your bulbs!) will provide squirrels with a lovely feast of nuts and may keep them away from your bulbs. If you do plant a hazel or other food plant for squirrels, remember it’s best to plant them away from your flower beds. Otherwise, the squirrels, keen to hide the nuts which you’ve kindly grown for them, may wreak havoc burying nuts in your beds and borders!

Feeding naturally also applies to birds too. There’s no doubt bird feeders attract squirrels into the garden, and the more squirrels you have, the more vulnerable your bulbs are.

So if you don’t enjoy seeing the squirrels but you still want to look after the birds, you could take the radical step of removing or reducing your bird feeders and instead feed the birds through some clever planting of seed and berry-bearing plants. Good choices are holly, ivy, crab apples and hawthorn.

Well that’s it how to protect your bulbs from squirrels in 11 easy steps.