I am having problems with rotten chipmunks eating bulbs. I just got my first big selection of lilies and want them to live and bloom. I know I have to fence them from little bunny foo-foos, but can I cover them with some type of wire when I plant to keep the chippers from digging them up and eating them?
Thanks for any advice!
I am planting a Chipmunk buffet!
You can try fencing wire laid flat and secured on the ground. The lily sprouts can poke through the grids.
Try Cayenne pepper around the place where you plant the bulbs. There is a repellent called "Repellsall" that is supposed to repell even snakes.
Do they dig or tunnel? You might need to makes a little 'basket' out of 1/4'' hardware cloth. There is a solution available that you can dip your bulbs in as a scent deterrant. Blood meal works on a lot of critters. I hope some of these suggestions help. :)
Try the Plantskydd granular form. It is supposed to work well for voles, chipmonks and such...
http://www.plantskydd.com/buy.html
Chipmunkc detest Milorganite. If you can sprinkle some over the locations, they will leave your bulbs alone. I have at, at times, whole families of them. But anything sprinkled with Milorganite, they stay away from.
Donna
Thank you for all of the tips! I think I'm going to try to find some Milorganite. I wonder if I can impregnate ALL of my soil with it?! LOL!
:)
Susie,
You need very little. It really takes care of the little cretins!
Donna
Donna,
Where do you find it?
Thanks!
I get mine at Ace Hardware. Do you have something like that locally?
Try this:
http://www.milorganite.com/storefinder/
Donna,
Meijer had it!! Thanks for the link! Ace here didn't carry it.
The guy at Meijer told me that it would get my lawn nice and green. I told him I just wanted it for chipmunks and he acted like I was a bit crazy... I did call the company and ask them if they'd ever heard of using Milorganite for chipmunks. The lady laughed and said, 'that's a new one.' She did tell me that people use it to keep deer away. So...any tricks to spreading it? Do I have to reapply every time it rains? I'm excited to use this especially after I saw stuff to kill chipmunks! They are too cute- I just can't do it!
I'll let you know how it works but thanks again for the help and I'll look forward to hearing how to apply it. :)
Susie
You made me laugh!
Yes, it will make your lawn nice and green because it is an organic, time released fertilizer with a low nitrogen level, so it won't burn. The company rep laughed?!!!! And, yes, people do use it for deer.
The beauty of it is that it does not go away when it rains. The chippers dig in your beds because they are looking for the food they or another chipmunk put there. So when they see disturbed earth they wonder - did I bury something there? And dig to check. And, of course if there is a tasty little bulb there, they will eat it. But they use to dig in my pots of annuals checking for goodies. And, of course, expose the roots to the air. Really cute but not very bright. Also, if someone around you feeds birds things like sunflower seed, they may bury it. That only happened to me once, and you'll see it when it sprouts.
Remember - they hate the smell, so you don't need much. Just sprinkle some any place you turn the earth, or any place they dig. In pots, I just use a dusting. When you are finished planting your bulbs, just broadcast some over the beds - enough that they can smell it. And you do not need to reapply it when it rains. It isn't going anywhere, and the rains, if anything, intensify the smell. I use it once a season. The bag lasts years.
I'm so pleased that you found it. Do let me know how it works for you. And I agree, they are too cute to kill.
Donna
I'm not having a problem with rabbits or chipmonks this year. Seems I have a mama fox and a litter of kits living down in my timber. :) Now, if I could just talk them into taking out a deer or two.. :) LOL
Ticker,
Take pictures for us!!! I love seeing the mama foxes and their babies! They, too, are adorable! I think most animals (especially babies) are cute. There's one exception...OPOSSOMS- I detest them! Ick! I saw that Cracker Barrel is selling stuffed opossoms. The only way I'd consider buying one is if they were flat- did I say that I don't like them?????? ;)
Ah, opposums - I encounter them from time to time.
The opossums got into the habit of walking around the foundation of my property. We have coyotes (spotted within 20 feet of the house!), hawks and owls, and by walking the base of my house, which is almost completely surrounded by shrubs, they feel safer. A little weird when you come home after dark, pull into your driveway, and see the reflection of their beady little eyes walking behind the lilacs - in your direction. They use the yard for protection only - otherwise I never see them, and they don't seem to damage anything.
But - favorite experience. We have a grill on the porch, and a sliding glass door leading to it. We were entertaining guests, and my husband was griiling marlin. As we and are guests watched, a HUMONGOUS possum lumbered up the deck steps, and looked at us through the glass, obviously wondering "where's the fish?" My husband was pretty freaked, but our guests, co-workers who were born in Beijing, thought it was delightful and wondered if it happened all the time!
Baby possums are pretty darn cute, but it ends there! Their only saving grace is that they eat dead stuff. I don't like crows either but they serve the same purpose.
Possums, racoons and foxes all stink to high heaven. I'd just as soon they didn't wander up near the house.
You two are really funny. This is quite a suburban development, although it's a conservation community. Possums and skunks don't linger. Never got close enough to a possum to small one.
On the other hand, a male and female cardinal have been around all afternoon scoping out my lilacs as a possible nesting site. Too beautiful. And I see great blue herons almost every day because we have an ideal nesting site, and another one nearby has been preserved.
We have a bit of everything as we live by the lake here. At least raccoons and foxes are cute! I caught a baby raccoon in my chipmunk trap once and took it to a raccoon rehabilitator. She let me pet one she had and I was surprised to find that it was really coarse. It was darling and didn't stink. I've never been close enough to a fox to know but would still love a picture or two!
We have a lot of birds (no herons in the back yard) here and I detest grackles (sp?) followed by crows. They are food pigs. Mama and papa duck routinely land in our back yard and eat under the bird feeders. Our Chihuahua, CoCo, LOVES to roll in duck poop, so she's the happiest of all when they land in the back yard. We do have turkey vultures in the area which I understand smell really bad but I've never gotten close to them, either. I have read that they are really smart.
The opossum story is funny but I still think they are gross. I caught one in the chipmunk trap with it's nasty rat tail, beady eyes, rat fur, and pig nose. The thing HISSED at me and showed its icky sharp teeth every chance it got. YUCK!!!
I used to have a fox family living across the street ~ sure didn't have rabbit problems back then. I'd gladly have them back any day!
We had a few foxes too - lovely creatures. Unfortunately I understand that coyotes view them as competition and wipe them out. And our hawks make every other creature very nervous!
I love the animals around here! We actually have two bird feeders that suction cup to the windows for the cats. The cats get to throw themselves against the window as they "hunt" the birds who come to eat and no one gets hurt! Then again, I think I've noticed more bird doo below those feeders, LOL! :)
Quite frankly, I think we need to be more proactive on keeping the Coyote population down. Coyotes will interbreed with dogs and I believe it has also with the Eastern Grey Wolf, which then makes them a lot more dangerous. There have been a lot more attacks on humans (let alone pets and farm animals) in the past couple years by these interbred Coyotes. So far, I haven't seen any near my area (interbred or not), but, a few years ago we would hear them singing. With more and more urban sprawl, and with as smart as a Coyote is, things are just ripe for them to be settling in and taking advantage of the situation.
Donna,
My mom is in SE Wisconsin and wants to know if this stuff will keep big bunnies away. She said she has a mongo-huge bunny that is eating at her "plant buffet" and is so big that he chases CROWS away!!! She said it's funny to watch but he's got to quit eating!!!
Ticker,
Think of it this way - if you have some bratty neighbor kids you really don't like...
:)
Naughty!
We don't have wolves, so interbreeding is not an issue. We do have chickens at an organic farm in the community, and once someone learned the hard way that you don't leave the door to it open overnight, but I see them, probably more than other people, because I run at and sometimes before dawn. They seem frightened of me. They freeze, and if I come closer they run away and keep an eye on me so I don't get too close. They also keep the rabbit population down - tell your Mom!
What they will do, if winter is very hard, is go after very small dogs that are left outside at night - something that isn't a particularly smart thing to do. But they've never gone after a human being, however small (although I'm telling you SusieR, I have a couple of candidates...)
:)
We have a Chihuahua but she stays in at night. I think she could take on a wolf and win!! She's a fiesty thing. I'm not sure my mom would trade mongo-bunny for a wolf because the wolf wouldn't stay. Do you think the Milorganite might be a substitute to blunt mongo's appetite?
Most of the kids in my neighborhood are nice, so I wouldn't put them out for the wolves. Now, some of the women who think they are part of the "Real Housewives..." I would tie out at night without another thought! Yeah, I know- not nice (although honest and we all know a woman or two who would qualify...!) :)
It's not the plain vanilla Coyote that one needs to worry about, it's the ones that interbreed. They get bigger and become fearless and bolder. These are the ones that can pose a threat to humans.
The plain vanilla Coyotes usually will not mess with humans. However, not only will they will take out a small dog, but they will use your cat as an appetizer before getting your small dog.
I really don't have any bratty neighborhood kids to feed to anything.. *sigh* Oh well, there is always hope for the future. :) LOL
Donna, please be careful out running, OK? I like you way too much to see you become an Hors d'œuvre. :)
That's only if she's small, right??? LOL!
Anyway, no gardener I know could ever be confused with one of those "Real Housewives..."
It is so sweet of you to worry but I ran for 15 years in Lincoln Park - often at 4:30 a.m. I interviewed the police, and they suggested running at the crack of dawn because PEOPLE are the problem, so they pointed out:
There are police cars every half mile in Lincoln Park (true)
If you wear all black no one can see you coming (oh yeah!)
Your head should always be on a swivel.
Crooks and perverts sleep in. If they were productive enough to rise early they wouldn't be crooks and perverts (in my experience, true).
The most dangerous time to run is 6:00 p.m. in a crowded park with lots of people, since no one knows precisely who is with you, and who is not. There were some awful incidences in crowded Grant Park.
Out here I am running on limestone trails inside my community, where people are easily visible at great distances. We are surrounded by miles of farmland you would have to cross, and there are houses to go to for help.
I wear my Raybans and scare people (the Matrix/Ninja look). I don't wear pink froo froo colors or wear my hair in a ponytail.
These guys are whimps. (I've scared several running up behind them).
Take up bodybuilding. I was in the city passing a group of teenagers. They can be really dangerous, because they do things to impress each other. As I was running past, one said "hey man, look at her legs! Another, in an awkstruck tone said "hey, man, look at her ARMS!" Grow biceps.
And the answer to "Can I run with you?" is "yeah, come on, let's go seven miles!" Silence.
28 happy years of running, and eating whatever I want!
Donna, I can think of easier ways to commit suicide than to go running with you or your cute garden boy. :) Besides, if I did go running with you, you surely wouldn't have to worry about coyotes. They'd get me first. :) LOL What is that saying?? "You don't have to be the fastest in the group, just not the slowest." :) LOL
Just not the slowest LOL I like that!
Since I am not a runner anymore, I would be the first course for the family of six. They always want the plump, juicy ones first!!! :)
LOL!