How to Protect Bulbs from Garden Animals

It is devastating seeing all your hard work being damaged and eaten by unwelcome visitors to your garden. Here are some suggestions to help protect your garden from becoming an all-you-can-eat salad bar for the critters.

Things You'll Need

• Chicken wire
• Bitter tasting bulbs
• Rotten eggs or pre-made mixture
• Fence
• Seeds, nuts, corn kernels

Instructions

1. Remove clues from the animals that will damage your bulbs. Deer and other animals rely on scent and visual cues.

   Reorganize and clean up all debris and gardening tools after planting. This includes any paper/plastic packages in which the bulbs were wrapped, papery jackets that have fallen off the bulbs, pots and planters, boxes/cartons, soil, mulch, and fertilizer.

2. Use rotten eggs from your kitchen or commercially prepared mixtures. Contact your local garden center for predator scents. Sprinkling a mixture made of white pepper and soil around your plant and bulbs is effective, too.

3. Plant bulb varieties that are bitter tasting to wildlife. Some favorite flowers and plants that their bulbs taste bitter are: camassia, Crocus tommasinianus, galanthus, Spanish bluebells, hyacinths, muscari, narcissus, ornithogalum, and scilla.

4. Although deer can jump very high and wide, but not simultaneously. The best deterrent for them is a set of double fence about three feet apart; one very high, about a 8-foot fence and the other one wide. Deer apparently see two fences, and will leave because they don't want to trap themselves between the structures. Try not to use electrified fences for humane reasons. There are also ultra-sound animal deterrent devices you can buy and install around your property, but many people question the effectiveness of these equipment.

5. Place a sheet of chicken wire directly on top of the planted area. Never mind to figure out yourself as for why plants and bulbs seem to know intuitively how to thrive through the empty spaces between the wires. Instead of buying new chicken wire, the frugal way is use an old window/door screen on top of the soil, and remove it once the ground freezes.

6. Feed them if you can't beat them. Leave some peanuts, corn, sunflower seeds in feeders or sprinkle directly on the ground to distract animals from digging up your bulbs or eating established plants in your yard.

7. In fall and spring, your yard may be vulnerable to rabbits, deer, squirrels, moles, birds and even house cats and dogs. Apply strategies above to help your investment from being damaged by garden animals.