To keep squirrels and rabbits out of your garden, use fencing and deterrents, such as motion-activated sprinklers, anti-squirrel barriers, or natural repellents like garlic, pepper fleck, or vinegar. By implementing effective barriers and deterrents, you can protect your garden and prevent these animals from causing damage.
Gardening can be a rewarding hobby, but it can also be frustrating when critters like squirrels and rabbits feast on your hard work.
These animals can wreak havoc in your garden, destroying plants and eating vegetables.
Luckily, there are several strategies you can use to keep squirrels and rabbits out of your garden.
This article will provide you with useful tips and techniques to protect your garden from these unwanted visitors, allowing you to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
What is the impact of squirrels and rabbits on your garden?
To keep your garden safe from squirrels and rabbits, you need to know how they can mess up your plants.
These little animals can hurt your garden by eating your plants, flowers, and fruits.
They do things like nibbling on leaves, chewing on tree bark, or stepping on your plants, which can cause a lot of damage.
To stop them, you should look for signs that they’re around, like chewed leaves or messed-up plants.
Then, you can do things to keep them away. You can build fences, put up mesh nets, or use things that smell bad to them as a way to stop them from coming into your garden.
Planting strong-smelling herbs like marigolds or lavender can also help because these smells bother squirrels and rabbits.
It’s important to keep checking your garden for signs of these animals and fix any problems that you find quickly.
That way, your garden can stay nice and healthy, and you won’t have to worry about these unwanted visitors hurting your plants.
What Are the Symptoms or Signs That Indicate the Garden Is Full of Squirrels and Rabbits?
Several symptoms suggest the garden is full of Squirrels and Rabbits.
If you find these symptoms in the perimeter of your garden, then you should take steps to eradicate them.
Here are the comparison symptoms between Squirrels and Rabbits-
| Signs of Squirrels in Your Garden | Signs of Rabbits in Your Garden |
| Digging up flower bulbs | Making sharp cuts on plants |
| Split nut shells | Leaving pellet droppings |
| Bite marks and partially eaten flowers | Stripping bark from the base of older trees |
| Digging shallow holes in planting beds (golf ball-sized or smaller) |
Other animals that may eat plants and cause damage in your garden include deer, chipmunks, and woodchucks. The most important thing to do first is to figure out which type of animal is causing the damage. That way, we can find the right way to fix the problem.
How to Keep Squirrels and Rabbits Out of the Garden?
1) Creating A Wildlife-Friendly Garden
Squirrels and rabbits evolve to nature where food is available.
So, where human intervention is present ( like a garden, zoo, park, farm area, etc. ) that place is suitable for these animals.
To keep squirrels and rabbits out of the garden, you should make a garden that’s friendly to wildlife means choosing plants that don’t attract squirrels and rabbits.
Here is the list of plants that Squirrels and Rabbits hate-
- Marigolds
- Daffodils
- Lavender
- Rosemary
- Mint
- Catnip
- Alliums (such as onions, garlic, and leeks)
- Fennel
- Echinacea (coneflower)
- Geraniums
Besides these plans, don’t forget to clean up your garden by picking up any fruits or veggies that fall down.
This makes it less tempting for squirrels and rabbits.
It’s also a good idea to check the fences and barriers often to make sure there aren’t any holes or breaks that let animals in.
Read: How Often To Water Raised Bed Garden?
2) Sealing Off Potential Entry Points
When you want to keep squirrels and rabbits out of your garden, it’s really important to make sure they can’t get in easily.
You can do this by checking all around the edges of your garden. Make your fences and gates stronger by adding extra support or locks.
Also, if there are any holes or gaps in your walls, roof, or under the deck, fix them so these animals can’t sneak in.
Don’t forget to look carefully for even the tiniest holes or weak spots in your garden’s borders.
Sealing with caulk or foam on every corner where the holes are present is a decent way to get retard from the garden.
3) Maintaining A Clean And Tidy Garden
It’s important to keep your garden clean and neat so that squirrels and rabbits don’t come in.
Make sure to pick up any fallen fruits, nuts, and seeds to stop them from being interested in your garden. Also, get rid of any mess and places where they might hide.
You can avoid planting fruit trees like-
- Apple
- Banana
- Grapes
- Strawberry
- Blueberries
- Pineapple
- Peach
- Honeydew
- Kiwi
- Pomegranates
If you can keep these fruits out of the garden, the mentioned animals won’t like to come to your place.
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Another thing to do is to throw away your trash properly so that there’s nothing that attracts them to your garden.
Make sure to use a trash can that has a lid or covering, so that these rodents can’t come to consume it.
4) Repel with Onion spill:
Rabbits are very much deleterious with cut onion pieces. You can sprinkle the onions over the garden from the entrance to a shady place.
You should practice this in your raised garden beds if the rabbit population is frequent.
However, hot pepper or talcum powder can cause a similar effect.
Garlic, on the other side, is the best option to deter these pests. You can make a solution with it and spray it over the garden.
Besides these techniques, If you want to keep rabbits away from your garden without using chemicals, you can try using cayenne pepper.
Many gardeners have been using it for a long time because it smells bad to animals like rabbits.
You can put a little bit of it around your plants or mix it with water to make a spray.
So, overall, if you use these methods and combine them with other ways to keep rabbits away, the damage they cause will become much less very quickly.
5) Cover the ground.
Squirrels don’t really enjoy walking on mulch, especially the kind made of small rocks, so it’s a good idea to put mulch in your garden beds.
When you plant new flower bulbs, mulch can also hide the smell of the bulbs from curious squirrels.
Another thing you can try is putting aluminum or silver foil on the ground.
In my opinion, if it is possible then you can make a raised bed garden with fencing materials or a greenhouse to minimize the problem in total.
If your garden is too big to cover with mulch and hard cloth then natural barrier and repellent treatment will be enough to eradicate the squirrels and rabbits from your area.
6) Dog Companion ( Dual Benefits)
Most puppies really enjoy chasing after squirrels and rabbits.
When your dog watches over your garden, it helps keep these tricky little animals away.
When you brush your dog, you can even use their hair in your garden to keep unwanted visitors out.
If you don’t like dogs, you can also buy some spray that smells like a predator’s urine to scare away the thieves.
These animals don’t like the smell of human and dog hair, and they feel that there are people and dogs around when they detect this scent.
7) Coffee grounds:
Coffee grounds have two useful jobs in your garden.
First, they can help keep pests away because they don’t like the smell of coffee grounds.
You can sprinkle them around your garden to protect your plants.
Second, you can use coffee grounds to make your compost better. When you add them to your compost pile, they give it important nutrients to help your plants grow better.
So, coffee grounds are handy for your garden in two ways.
8) Use Chicken Wires
Chicken wire is available in a variety of sizes to keep squirrels and rabbits out of your garden.
A 1-inch mesh will keep these animals out, while a 2-inch mesh is ideal for raised beds and plant covers.
The wire protection not only eradicates the problem with these animals but also exclude cats, rats, chicken, chipmunks, etc from your garden.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will Coffee Grounds Keep Squirrels And Rabbits Away?
Coffee grounds are an effective way to keep squirrels and rabbits away. But, yes, you should apply these directly to the base of the plantings.
It has tangent scents with a brown color to hamper the irritating rabbits’ paws.
You can use this method to keep rabbits from the garden by
- Sprinkle coffee grounds around the area where rabbits frequent
- Mix coffee grounds into the topsoil
- Sprinkle coffee grounds in the morning
Coffee grounds can also be used to repel squirrels. You can:
- Soak sheets or rags in a slurry of coffee grounds
- Line the area with soaked sheets or rags”
How Do I Keep Squirrels And Rabbits From Eating My Tomatoes?
Tomatoes are the most common vegetables in the garden. About 90% of vegetable gardeners grow them occasionally.
And the bad news is squirrels and rabbits like to eat tomatoes.
That is why if your garden is full of tomato plants their intervention is a reason for keeping them out.
You can do it by maintaining several vital points
- Fencing
- Barrier plants
- Spray
- Netting
- Cages
- Place bad-smelling things near your plants, like predator urine or mothballs.
- Natural repellents like chili powder or garlic spray.
How Do I Keep Rodents And Rabbits Out Of My Garden?
Both squirrels and rabbits are natural foragers and can be a challenge to keep out of your garden.
Though we have talked before about some key and common techniques to gei rid of them from the garden. Besides those here are some effective methods to deter them:
- Noisemakers
- Ultrasonic devices
- Motion-activated water sprayers
- Reflective tape – ( highly effective for deterring birds)
- Scarecrows
N.B: Try as per your garden size, plant type, rodent populations, etc.
How Do I Prevent Squirrels From Digging In My Garden?
Their worst behavior for your garden is to dig it.
Ground squirrel burrows typically have openings that are about 4-5 inches wide.
These openings are connected to tunnels underground, which can go down about 2.5-4 feet deep and stretch anywhere from 5 to 35 feet in length.
To stop squirrels from bothering your garden, you can use different tricks like:
Protecting Plants: Keep your plants safe by putting in wire cages or covering them with things like hardware cloth, chicken wire, or special netting.
Spreading Smelly Stuff: Squirrels don’t like certain smells. Try putting things like coffee grounds, dog hair, or peppermint oil around your plants.
You can also sprinkle cayenne pepper, chili flakes, or garlic pepper when your plants are about to bloom.
Tricky Bird Feeders: If you have bird feeders, make them squirrel-proof by putting them on tall poles covered in slippery grease. Squirrels won’t be able to climb up.
Use Fake Friends: Fake owls, snakes, or other pretend animals can make squirrels think there are predators around.
Move these pretend creatures around sometimes so the squirrels don’t figure out they’re not real.
Plant Smart: Squirrels are less interested in some flowers. Plant bulbs like daffodils, hyacinths, or garlic near the ones squirrels like to eat.
Spicy Bird Food: Squirrels love bird feeders. You can try adding cayenne pepper to the bird food to keep them away.
Conclusion
In conclusion, keeping your garden safe from squirrels and rabbits involves using a mix of strategies. You can put up fences and netting to stop them from reaching your plants. Setting aside a spot in your garden where they can find food they like is a good idea too.
So, overall consideration, think as per your garden requirements and feel free to know if you invent some new techniques.
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