Pests: Best animal repellents

msponddreller Irish Spring ????? I guess they don't like the smell and stay away. Sounds like your on to something msponddreller using this. Might work on rabbits too.


cuckoo

It doesn't work on chipmunks. :>{

NoH2O What kind of a chipmunk problem are you having? I'm not sure what will work on repelling those little cute critters!!!

cuckoo

You can read all about it here: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/534035/

They are cute but extremely destructive in my yard.

amen to that NoH2O. I have had it with this one dude eating my hosta to the ground! I have a Bengal cat, she loves to "hunt" but I don't let her out and I don't have the stomach for that anyhow. My Gramma used to let her cat out and she would bring Gram birds and drop them right on her sewing machine, sometimes still (barely) alive. She was always so proud of her good deed. I don't want to necessarily kill it, just to make him GO AWAY! lol

i' m not sure where i should post this, but maybe one of you can help. I have a critter that, midday, has come out and completely eaten my crocus flowers right next to my front porch.

do squirrels do that, or something i haven't met yet? we don't have rabbits.

btw, i have had a lot of success with dried blood in keeping squirrels out of my containers and bulbs. also, i tried mixing cayenne w/regular bird food and that didn't work, but the squirrel-away bird food that's already treated has worked wonders. the birds actually got something to eat this year!

you sure you don't have rabbits?

well, i guess one can never say never, but we've been here for 10 years and i've never seen a rabbit. i think i've heard mice scurrying in that area. do mice eat flowers?

thanks for your reply.

I think it's the rabbits

I have a major problem with deer and chipmunks. The deer love my azaleas and hydrangeas that I have planted in the backyard. I usually make a concoction of eggs and hot pepper that works pretty well, but has to be resprayed every couple of days. The REAL problem I have now is chipmunks. I have made a kitchen garden 18 by 30 at my back door. When I was taking out the old shrubs, I found 2 holes. Well, we dug them pretty deep and filled with rock and dirt. Came out a few hours later and then there were 5 holes. Its been like the movie "Caddyshack" around here for a week now! We dig the holes, sometimes excavating the holes for 10 ft or more and go out there later and there will be more holes in different places. I bet there are probably about 10 mounds out there right now. We don't want to poison the little guys, but from what I have read, they are very territorial and I don't want to plant anything with them out there. Any ideas? Deb

You might try Milorganite for chipmunks. They were repeatedly digging up new plants, both in the ground and in pots on my porch. A one time small sprinkling of Milorganite in pots or on new plants COMPLETELY stopped the destruction for the rest of the season. I still see them running around my yard, but there is no chipmunk damage. Whenever I install a new pllant, I just sprinkle some on top.

I think I may have found the solution to voles. A product called Voleblok (I got it from Yardiac.com). It's expandable slate, and actually improves your drainage. Last year the voles decimated about 50 of my tulips (which was OK) and about 25 of my lilies, completely wiping out my prized Longdragons, amongst others (which was not OK!). I used Voleblok as directed but frankly I applied perhaps half the recommended amount. I put a fairly thin layer on the bottom (perhaps half an inch, not two inches), top and sides and spread it our a bit. The trick seems to be to get a fairly continuous layer, but not a solid one. I still have 60% of the bag left .

The results this spring are fabulous. The voles did a fair amount of damage (3-4 times the usual) to the grass surrounding the beds while circling round and round the lily and tulip beds. It was quite clear that they could sniff out the bulbs and were looking
for an "open door". In places they were within six inches of the bulbs - but I lost none! Grass is easy to repair. The best part is that I now feel confident about ordering all the lilies I want. And for bulbs I don't dig up, like lilies, I don't have to reapply it.

Nothing else I tried worked (thiram, Milorganite, coyote urine, blood meal). And, by the way, Permatil is the exact same product, but more expensive. Yardiac sells both.


This message was edited May 18, 2006 12:42 PM

I am glad to hear this...thanks for the info.

Any suggestions on the best way to keep rabbits away from plants? They eat my morning glories to the ground and also chew on my crocuses and tupils in the spring. Chicken wire has been my best defense so far but it's ugly and they sometimes manage to manipulate their way past it. Deer Off (recommended by local garden store) and cocoa bean chips (from neighbor) haven't worked either. And the rabbits are faster than my dogs! Any ideas?

I can't believe Deer Off didn't help....try Ropel? Only thing with Ropel is it doesn't last through a rain. I have been using Deer OUT for over a year and it has been working beautifully for the deer.

Hello Mastawniak. In the battle against rabbits, I have had about 90% success with garden products that contain a 5% to 10% solution of thiram. I spray it on the plants as they emerge from the ground. It's used in the horticultural trade for several purposes. Here is a blurb that describes it pretty well.

"Introduction: Thiram is a dimethyl dithiocarbamate compound used as a fungicide to prevent crop damage in the field and to protect harvested crops from deterioration in storage or transport. Thiram is also used as a seed protectant and to protect fruit, vegetable, ornamental, and turf crops from a variety of fungal diseases. In addition, it is used as an animal repellent to protect fruit trees and ornamentals from damage by rabbits, rodents, and deer. Thiram is available as dust, flowable, wettable powder, water dispersible granules, and water suspension formulations, and in mixtures with other fungicides. Thiram has been used in the treatment of human scabies, as a sunscreen, and as a bactericide applied directly to the skin or incorporated into soap."

You’ll find the full text at: http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/thiram.htm

You need a substance with 5% or 10% - not 50% or 70%. It is whitish, but it stays after rain, and as the plants grow you can no longer see it. If I put it on lilies or tulips just as they are emerging from the ground, the rabbits (repelled by its bitterness) leave the plants alone and do not come back. Again, it works 90% of the time. I lost about 20 tulips (out of 200 plus). This is the only thing I have ever found that is effective, and it is much easier than dipping each bulb in a substance and letting it dry, as I understand are the instructions given with Ropel. Sometimes thiram is the active ingredient in bulb dips. Just read the label. I just put it in a spray bottle and walk around the garden spraying plants as they emerge. One spraying seems to do the trick – again, about 90% of the time on tulips, about98% on lilies. This is the first year I haven's lost 10-20 lilies to rabbit nip. How to find it? I suggest a Google search. Or, when you go into stores, look for animal repellents the state "active ingredient thiram in X%" but remember, I've used 5% and 10% and they work fine. There is no need to purchase an expensive 70% solution (yes, they're out there). Good luck!

Okay, I need help. I live on the 6th floor of an apartment building, and during nesting season I had a goose who was mistaking my balcony garden for a nesting site. Any ideas on what I can do next year to prevent this? Scaring the thing silly with my broom isn't always an option if I'm not here.

I had the same problem with mourning doves on my large hanging baskets. Scaring them away didn't work; they would return every morning and give me the hairy eyeball. Take some sheets of aluminum foil and bunch them up until they are about the size of a baseball. Not only are they uncomfortable to sit on, but they're shiny. Your plants will not have any trouble growing around them, and they are light enough so that they won't crush your plants. The geese will go elsewhere, even if you've had to scare them away repeatedly. Once nesting season is over, toss them. Worked like a charm. Good luck.

Thanks, Donna! I'll try that next year.

Here is what to do for squash borers:

Take a gallon milk jug. Slice off the bottom. You
will sit it over the young squash plant.

Slice off the top where the lid is. This is to let
light get to the squash plant.

Slice off the top of the handle. The handle is
now a chimney.

Take an aluminum soft drink can. Put 6-8
moth balls in it. Invert it over the chimney -
let the chimney stick up into the can.

Now the squash plant is bathed in fumes
that keep borers away. Even though the plant
grows up out of the jug and trails off, protection
seems to follow it for a long way.

The mothballs do not get in your soil, but I still
wonder if there are objections to this system.
I would be glad to hear if there are.

Fitsy

Mothballs! I hadn't thought of that. Would you have any idea how to treat a fully mature squash plant?

Well, haven't tried this, but my IDEA would be to
rig several of those mothball stations here and
there over the squast stems as they crawl along.
The protection seems to extend quite a way.
Ffitsy

:-) I would think so since even just one mothball is quite powerful.

Yes, I wondered why so many mothballs were
prescribed. This idea came from a reader of
the Georgia Market Bulletin, over 30 years ago.

I love your handle, cherishlife!

Fitsy

Thank you! :-) Yours is cute too. ;-)

cherishlife, if you are still around, I'd
like to invite you to look in on the Mid-
South Garden forum. Someone just
joined from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and
several are in Ark and west Tenn. We
also have a delightful young man from
Russia, and one from Iceland. I have
not gone to any gatherings so have not
met any of them, but they are so warm
and interesting that I feel as though they
are friends.
Fitsy

Sure, I'll put that on my list. Thanks

Here is another deer question: Has anyone heard of or used the product described on this site?
http://wirelessdeerfence.com/wdf/index.html

I love to watch "our" deer, we saw them playing in the pond the other night, seven of them, frolicking, it was wonderful, but then someone came and ate - for the second time - my one sweet potato vine right in front of the doorstep. Needless to say that they have bee into other things as well, like grapes.

Does this product sound like anything you might know about? I would be very interested in your comments and experiences.

C.

I have not read thru the whole thread -so I don't know if anyone has suggested an electronic device. We purchased two of them to scare off of pesty,pesky, persistant neighbors cat which hides around our bird bath. Rosey is her name - a smart cat -she has been catching a bird a day.

more information - it is a motion sensor and sends out a sound which only animals can hear. It works with Rosey.

Anyone have problems with armadillos? Everytime I fluff up my mulch in the gardens, that very night I am attacked by armadillos. They tend to dig up the roots of certain plants. I have tried most all home remedies but nothing seems to work. Don't really want to use an electronic devise as I have pets.

Susie2

Cats and maybe squirrels always dig up my new beds. (I wish I could train them to do deep turning, or weeding!) I named the bed closest to my deck "the catbox". I guess they like loose, open soil which is hard to come by in a fairly urban area with hard clay soil.

Recently I uprooted a few square yards of yew, and had many spikey, twisted, branching roots and bare branches. I criss-crossed them over some recently-planted Bok Choy, and nothing dug up that bed. I guess my local critters are lazy - this seemed enough to deter them.

It's unsightly, and you will want to pull them off before the plants grow into them too much, but could leave them around the perimeter.

But I'm keeping my eyes open for amotion-sensor-sprinkler!

Anything to repel cats that do not need reapplying more than say once a month? My Orioles are cutting back on orange eating, so I have fewer peels to throw around and BAD! cat urinated by my front porch. It has been awhile.

I tried granule fox/coyote urine, but that is short lived, too.

We have a large area to cover because we care about the birds on our property and we have a neighbour who feeds ferals. He is our closest neighbor maybe a 100 yards or so away. Thankfully, the cat did not bother the baby Chipping Sparrows in the shrubs near where the cat was.

Try old fashioned moth balls, i use it to repel the cats here. they aren't expensive and last about a month. I sprinkle them in the plant beds, one box for a 10 by 25 foot bed. so far no more cats or squrrels

annabelle15,

I appreciate you taking the time to reply. I vaguely remembered hearing mothballs are bad for the environment. So I just looked it up and here is a blurb from one website. (We just bought a reverse osmosis filter with an extra something that removes lead, farm chemicals, etc. I hope it is also removing this. )

"... naphthalene does not break down in the environment; moth balls used outside wear away to seep right into the ground water. Since water treatment plants do not remove PBT's, the use of moth balls outside contributes to a poisoning of our drinking water. "
http://www.silentmenace.com/Moth_Balls.html

Since writing this, I called a company that sells wolf urine and they suggested trying to place it on our wood posts and because they are porous, it is possible it will hold the scent longer than the 7-10 days. We also will try the 30 day dispensers at the same time and see which lasts longer.