Have you made your own bulb cage to fool the squirrells?

Have you had any experience making your own bulb cage to plant bulbs in so the squirrels/chipmunks wont eat the bulbs. I do plant to buy some ropel and soak the bulbs first as recommended by another member. I'd like to dig my tulips up and put all one color together, so it will look better next Spring, like in groups of 5 or 7..it's more showy that way. Might do the same with daffadils. Marking them is going to be the challenge, am trying to think of a simple way to do it, guess I'll order some more metal markers and write the color of the tulip on the marker. Any other suggestions?

Well let me start by saying I've never even heard of a bulb cage, but think the whole idea is fantastic... Couldn't you just use chicken wire?? and lay it down over the bulbs.. Wouldn't help if you had moles or something under the ground, but if its just the squirrels I can see them getting through that.. Not sure how it would hold up in the soil though..

Yeppers, just made some bulb cages for the first time last week. It's not hard to do at all, just a bit time consuming. DBF did most of the cutting work. I "sewed" the cages together with wire and needle nose pliers.

Here's a link I still happen to have open from making the cages (even tho we did it a little differently)

http://homes-n-gardens.com/html/how-to-make-bulb-cages.html

That link is a pretty good how to with step by step instructions and pics. We used hardware cloth rather than chicken wire....it's the same thing only it has a square pattern instead of a hexagon pattern. It's usually sold together at the hardware store...it's also called rabbit fence at some places. I used 19 gauage galvanized picture hanging wire to sew them together. It's pliable and bendalbe so you can work with it, but still very strong.

For separating your bulbs by color...you can dig and move your bulbs while they are still "in the green." We were just discussing this in another thread. The blooms (and foliage) will not last as long this season, but that's just one year. You could dig them up and move them while they are in bloom, separate them by color, then this fall put them into cages. It would be very hard to put them into cages now without removing the foliage from them.

Most critters won't dig up or eat a Daff since they are poisonous so you shouldn't have to cage those. Where I'm at there are elk, deer, groundhog, squirrel, and chipmunk that visit daily...these are just a few of the garden pest I'm dealing with. Daffs are the ONLY bulbs that are growing here....and they popped their pretty little heads up in the ditch!!! They will be getting moved asap once they are done blooming! Nothing has touched them, and I'm sure nothing is going to either.

Hope that helps and good luck!

If I were building very many cages I think I'd get a bag of clips used to build rabbit cages and the pliers that put them on. I think it would speed the process up a lot. The link also shows them using wire cutters to cut the hardware cloth. I use tin snips to cut it. Tin snips are much faster because you don't end up cutting each wire individually.

One other thing, I always think of rabbit fencing as having 1" x 2" openings as opposed to 1/2' x 1/2" openings. This might be a regional thing though. -Doug

I googled and found that same site and I think I saved it. I print way too much stuff off to put into my garden journal and simply because it is easier for me to understand what I am reading if I have "a hard copy" in front of me rather than reading it off monitor screen. On way to Drs. appt. and I just looked up at the clock. Yikes, got to move! Will send another dmail later.

Doug, I wonder if that is regional. The rabbit fence I got is marked 1" and it IS 1" x 1". I would have like to have gotten 3/4" but everyone here was out of it.

I'll have to look when I go to TSC in the next couple of days, maybe I'm confusing fencing and cage material. I'd love to have some 1" x 1" and 3/4" x 3/4" "Hardware cloth".

Most places will call it hardware cloth...BUT nowadays (LOL!!) you can't count on that. So, what I did was ask for chicken wire fence but I told them I wanted it in a square pattern rather than a hex pattern. It's usually all on the same display, but it may not be at TSC since they separate things by the animal you're shopping for.

Honestly, you're best bet is to find an "old timer" and ask him/her. They'll fix ya up. Tell 'em what you're doing and they'll probably even come up with a better idea. Sorry, but if ya ask one of the young kids they usually just stare at ya like a deer in the headlights.

Make sure whatever you get...both your fencing and wire to "sew" it with...is galvanized, otherwise it'll rust and then you just wasted your time.

Lots of folks on another thread I read somewhere said doing this project really made a mess of their hands. It didn't bother mine at all. Maybe it was the 19 guage wire. I made sure I had something pliable when I picked it (have worked a LOT with wire before). I had a pair of leather gloves on hand tho...and a pair of safety glasses too, but didn't need them. Maybe I just have really, really thick skin?????? ha!

I'm currently thinking of making a new raised veggie garden bed and if I do I'm going to line the bottom of it with the hardware cloth. I'm starting to *love* this stuff!

Hi,
Here are a few suggestions that might also be of help:

**Re: Hardware cloth:
heathrjoy, you're right about finding an "old timer", but If you can't, I also found that if you say you want "welded wire fencing", but with tiny squares, that sometimes it helps & it may be in the same area.

**Another idea for a tulip cage: This is an easy-sounding idea I heard about from someone who swears it works (I haven't personally tried it yet).

1) Take chicken wire & cut a strip as high as you want your cage to be & long enough to bend it into a cylinder that's as large as you want.

2) Wire the ends together so you have a cylinder with no top or bottom.

3) Draw a circle large enough for the top & bottom on a piece of cardboard & using the cardboard as a template, cut circles for the top & bottom from the chicken wire.

4) Wire the bottoms onto your cages, set your tulips inside & wire the tops on.

5) Now, carefully set the cages into the prepared holes. It was recommended that you add your soil or some peat moss a little at a time until the cages are covered to make sure you don't have any air holes.
Also, the larger-size holes in the chicken wire allow room for the tulip foliage to grow through. Another plus is that "chicken wire" is a lot cheaper than "hardware cloth" & if you have a lot of tulips to make cages for it could definitely make a difference.

**Something I have personally tried for the last two years (I also have deer that like to nibble on tulip foliage). As you're planting the tulips, either wrap them in a piece of steel wool spread very thin, or spread pieces of steel wool over the tops if you've planted a bunch at one time. (Bags of steel wool are inexpensive & available at home center stores. Squirrels don't seem to be fond of it). Then, before filling the hole, spray with "Liquid Fence". (Yes it's a little stinky at first, but the smell fades by the next day). Spray once more after filling the hole.

If you have a problem with Deer or Rabbits that nibble the foliage, spray once a week with "Liquid Fence" after the foliage emerges. Usually after three weeks of spraying they have been trained to stay away & rain doesn't wash it away. A very fine spray is all that's needed.

By the way, I have had wonderful luck with Liquid fence on everything that the deer & rabbits nibble on so I buy it in the larger, more economical, size.

I looked for the 1"x1" material in TSC the other day. It is with the 1"x2' material and is called cage wire. Its intended use is for building rabbit cages and such.

Interesting thread. Thanks for all the details!

I have made baskets in the past and ruined my hands and did a lot of cussing, too. I wonder if I used wire with a thicker gage? You made it sound EZ!! (-:

This time I found hardware cloth that was about 3/4 x 3/4 in square...and I wondered if it would be big enough to let the lilies thru but keep out the voles and moles and chipmunks and rabbits? Does anyone have advice on this?? I thought 1 inch would be too 'open' for the small rodent protection and 1/2 inch too tiny for the bulb foliage.

And the way I did it this time was dig a bulb space that was roughly rectangular about 3 feet long and a foot wide. Laid the wire in the hole, letting it go up the sides, then placed the bulbs and sprayed the LF, covered the bulbs with soil. Then I cut another piece for a lid and just placed it over the lower part securing the top to the sides with a little wire. Then covered it with more soil to ground level.

I hope it will work~~but it isn't as tidy and secure as the nice wire boxes in your pictures. But my hands aren't killing me!

Oh, and Pippi, one more thought, some people find rearranging their daffs and tulips while they are 'in the green' is easier to do. That way they can tell the different varieties apart more easily.

Here is a link to White Flower Farms instructions on how to move bulbs 'in the green' that I found useful: http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/moving-spring-flower-bulbs.html