Keep Squirrels Out of Plants

Spring has sprung and so have the squirrels. The last thing anybody wants to see after spending time and money on plants is a squirrel digging them up. I have tried just about everything to keep the dang squirrels out of my plants. Here are 5 ways that I have found to successfully keep squirrels out of the plants.

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Those Darn Squirrels

During quarantine, we landscaped our yard and put in a garden. I was delighted by the beautiful beds and anxiously waited for the vegetables to ripen. It was all perfect…until the next day. The impatiens had been dug up and were laying on the porch. The hanging baskets looked like a giant bird sat on them. And my tomatoes had bites taken out of them and then left on the side of the garden. I was furious! The squirrels were destroying all of my hard work! For a while, I ran outside and beat on a pan with a wooden spoon to scare off every squirrel I saw come near my plants. Obviously that wasn’t going to work long term. I bought a squirrel baffle and that didn’t work either. I wished we lived out in the country, so that I could shoot them, but that wasn’t an option in the city. So I set out to find a solution.

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Squirrel Slinky

I have a hanging basket on the double shepherd’s hook opposite my bird feeder. The basket looked like a giant bird had sat in it and flattened my plants. As it turns out, the squirrels liked to sit in the basket, while munching on my bird seed. Can you hear the anger behind that statement? I put a slinky on the shepherd’s hook and it kept the squirrels out of the feeder and plant for about a year. Then one squirrel, got smart and figured out how to climb the slinky. It is still worth a shot though, if you have plants on shepherd’s hooks. I suggest using a metal slinky over a plastic one. The plastic gets brittle in the sunlight and breaks. It is a very cheap fix, until the squirrels smarten up. It’s also amusing to watch them jump up then slide down on their rumps.

Greasy Squirrels

After the squirrels learned how to climb the slinky, I needed a new solution to keep them out of my hanging baskets. Crisco to the rescue! About once a week during spring and summer, I put on a plastic glove and grab my can of Crisco. Then I go out and grease the poles. The neighbors think I’ve lost my mind, but that’s ok because I have beautiful hanging baskets all season. It is again hilarious and satisfying to watch them jump for the pole and slide right back down again. Plus, the neighbors already thought I was crazy. I like to keep them guessing about what I will come up with next.

Squirrel Mat

This year we cut up the woven hanging basket mats and placed them in the pots below the mulch. The squirrels finally quit digging up my potted plants once the mats were down. They gave up when they got to the mat and went to go bury their nuts somewhere else. This is a great solution for winter and early spring when the pots from last summer are just piles of dirt. It makes them look pretty too. Though this isn’t feasible in a flower bed, it works fabulously in potted plants.

Stinky Squirrels

Squirrels don’t like certain smells. Much like a dog, their noses are different than ours. This means they are more sensitive to certain smells, which can be used to deter their incessant digging.

Sprinkle coffee grounds around the plants every couple of weeks. Collect the grounds from your morning coffee. If you don’t want to sprinkle wet grounds, let them dry out on a cookie sheet before sprinkling.

You can also use homemade sprays. Squirrels dislike peppermint oil, apple cider vinegar, garlic, and white vinegar. Use a combination of these or a single smell to make your spray. Spray around the plants to deter the squirrels from digging in the beds.

Another way to use peppermint oil is to soak cotton balls with the oil and leave them in the beds. The squirrels don’t like the smell and should stay away.

Spicy Squirrels

This method has proven the most effective at keeping squirrels out of my plants. About once a week or after a good rain storm, I go outside and sprinkle cayenne pepper on the flower beds, potted plants, below the bird feeders, and around the garden. The squirrels get the pepper on their little paws and burn their mouths when they try to eat my tomato plants. I consider it payback for all of the damage they cause. It takes them about a week to figure out that the red stuff burns, but once they do, they find somewhere else to dig. When we go to Sam’s Club, I buy the big container of cayenne pepper to sprinkle around the plants.