Monday, March 14, 2011

Damn You, Squirrels!








I hope everyone had a lovely weekend!  I came hope yesterday afternoon to find a squirrel eating the heads off my newly blooming crocus flowers.  I felt like Mr. Wilson shaking my fist at Dennis The Menace.  Damn you, squirrels!!

After all, spring hasn't even officially started yet.  It's so maddening. 

Unfortunately, our yard has a TON of walnut trees.  So we attract every squirrel within a 10 mile radius.  What should I do? 

In other news, it looks like the yellow blossoms are not as favorable as the purple.  They are popping up quite nicely (for now, fingers crossed that our backyard squirrels don't develop a taste).

Yellow crocuses, all in a row
(No, I did not clean up the flower beds before snapping this picture...
please forgive the dead leaves from last fall)



Happy Monday, dolls.

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Em said...

Because narcissus/daffodils/jonquils are highly poisonous, a lot of animals avoid yellow bulb flowers. I've heard some people have luck interspersing the yellow and purple because the animals do avoid the yellow, and so many of the purple/white crocuses can be spared if they have enough yellow neighbors. But that is exasperating, especially in early march when one is so desperate for the spring-ness of crocuses!

Nicole Terry Merrell said...

Haha! I love this, although Im sure your not laughing too much!

Aimee@ the Functional Space said...

Oh, I feel your pain!! We have a huge squirrel problem in our yard (we have lots of nut trees too). They were actually eating the posts on our front porch!! I bought my husband a book called "Outwitting Squirrels". They are like the mafia when claiming an area and can live to be 30 yrs old! Good luck keeping them off your flowers!

Kelly Robson said...

Em! I didn't know that about yellow crocuses (although, I have heard that about daffodils). In that case, I'll plant yellow bulbs every year!

Design Blooms, I have to laugh a little... even though they drive me completely CRAZY. :)

Aimee, don't tell me that. 30 YEARS??!! I can't handle 30 years of squirrels eating the flowers and chewing on the porch posts. :) They already hide walnuts EVERYWHERE in the fall (under the porch cushions, behind exterior shutters, in the planters... it's hysterical). If they keep this up, I might have to bust out the shotgun (kidding).

xoxo
Kelly

Betsy said...

So maddening. They gnaw at everything. My nephew had to take extreme measures when they started gnawing near the eaves of the house. They are rodents.
Beautiful crocus.
Betsy

A Vintage Vine said...

So sorry, bunnies are my problem, they eat everything. When they eat my strawberries, I stomp, cuss and scream!!! Hang in there!

Anne-Marie said...

My father would put out peanut butter in a humane trap. He'd catch them and take them out to the woods to be let free. But they always came back - we would joke that it was because they received gourmet peanut butter and a cushy ride in a mercedes!

Linda in AZ * said...

* I'M SORRY, Kelly~~~ I couldn't help but SMILE at your "problem"!!!... Oh, NOT because of what happened, but because YOU & I BOTH know that YOU "kind of sorta smiled inwardly", too, because if that were THE WORST THING that E*V*E*R happened in our lives, we'd die "lucky women"!!!

It makes me realize I really AM "GETTING OLD", too! In the desert we actually have JAVELINAS (they are SOOOOO "BUTT UGLY" THEY"RE A*L*M*O*S*T CUTE!)... they're homely as sin, STINK something awful, are practically blind and move as slow as molasses when you say "shush!"... AND, they come right up to our house occassionally, usually but not ALWAYS, during a drought, for water from the front porch waterfall, ORRRR, to eat some of OUR desert plantlife...it can be maddening for us AND the gardener!!!

In the beginning, when we moved here 6 years ago, I would get SOOOO EXCITED & THRILLED (I'm an ANIMAL LOVER to the nTH degree~ we also get the occassional bobcat and once, a mountain lion jumped over the back iron "fence" & ended up in the POOL!!! HONEST!!!!!!)~~

NOW I know to remember/realize that "THEY were here first", and that as frustrated as I MIGHT get, it really ISSSSS rather sweet!!!

Funny how life works, huh?

HOPE you can have a happy n' sunny day after losing your darlings~~~ I promise if I were there, I would go buy you some & bring them to you, my friend!

Warmest blessings,
Linda in AZ *
bellesmom1234@comcast.net

Cindy @ a curious gardener said...

Sadly, you have to give up on the crocuses and add more daffodils to your yard because no one likes to eat them.

Interspersing them does not work in our yard because they do not bloom at the same time here, crocuses are earlier bloomers.

Constantly having to spray, using different techniques to deter deer and rodents is silly...just plant what they will not eat!

Anonymous said...

Uh-huh..... I planted about 200 crocuses last autumn and about 100 snowdrops, and all we got was a few leaves. Our little grey friends stole the rest.

I'm in the UK, so we WERE here before the grey squirrels, which were introduced from your side of the pond a couple of centuries ago.

I'll buy yellow ones for next year.....

An Urban Cottage said...

I'm happy to know I'm not the only one. I planted about 300 crocus bulbs two years ago and most the purple ones were gone by the next spring. This year the first day the yellow ones opened, the little bastards arrived and plucked about half of them out of the ground, ripped off the flowers and ate the bulbs. If they're hungry enough, they'll eat just about anything.

You can build "cages" out of smaller gauge chicken-type wire and then bury the cages but I think that's for larger bulbs like tulips. It's a lot of work to go to.

If they can get on your house from adjacent trees you should keep watch that they're not chewing on the fascia above your gutters. They chewed their way into my last house three times.

Shannon said...

I know. It's a bummer. Just don't go the pesticide route! The squirrelies mean no harm. It's just what they do: eat. Just like we enjoy the veggies and fruits. :) Good luck!

1776 Lady said...

I know ALL about flower eating squirrels! My problem is a bit different & has to do with squirrels eating flowers from my son's gravesite. I don't know if the primary issue is simply 'Crocuses', but, I CAN tell you they won't eat Gladiolas, Iris's, Roses, Daffodils, Matsumoto Mums, Peruvian Lilies! I'm talking about the California Ground Squirrel, don't know about other areas or tree squirrels.

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