Help the squirrels are killing my Mimosa Tree !!!!

Does anybody have any thought how to keep the squirrels from chewing the bark off and drinking the sap from my mimosa tree. The leaves are turning yellow and falling off the limbs. It look like they are going to kill the tree. Has this ever happen to anybody else? I don't really want to harm them if I don't have to.I do have a bird bath setting in my yard. I also water my yard very often as well, so I don,t think it really for water. The squirrels are very healthy looking. This mimosa tree is not a young or new tree it been here more than ten years. This is the first time these group of squirrels have ever attacked it. This tree is in my back yard. I do have a couple more mimosas, one in the side yard another in the front. They are just as old and tall as the one in the back yard, but the squirrels there are not attacking them. The sap is just pouring out this tree and making a puddle at the base of the tree. The sap does have sort of sweet smell to it. I don't know what to do. I am scared that they will kill it then move on to the others. These trees give my yard some shade that it need very much.

If they're attacking near the base, can you wrap the trunk with corrugated drain PVC or tree wrap, like people do to keep bark from getting chewed up by weed-eaters? Or put hardware mesh in a circle around the base of the tree so they can't get to it?

(((tree))))

:'(

NO it is in several place up and down the tree. They are getting in this tree from climbing from another tree.The main trunk of this tree is about a foot or more wide. The tree itself is about twenty or more foot tall.

This message was edited Tuesday, Jun 24th 10:54 AM

You might look for something that would repel them - there are plenty of (relatively) safe-but-foul-smelling items you could smear on the damaged areas. You might try Gardens Alive! or one of the other bio-control vendors for products that would rebuff the squirrels (and there's always squirrel stew, if you don't mind the cholesterol (*grin*)

I don't know about a tree this age or the significance of the sap problem, but if we're talking about Albizia julbrissin, these Mimosa's are relatively....ummm...."enthusiastic" about growing - some people pollard theirs annually, and in colder climates they're grown as herbaceous shrubs, to which the tree responds with vigorous new growth. Chewed-off bark all the way around can/will girdle the growth of most trees, though, and cause an early demise.

ClaytonDT: I would suggest you call your McLennan County agricultural agent and see if he has any suggestions. We have a lot of mimosa trees in our area and I have never heard of this problem before. Course, as someone suggested, there's always squirrel stew. The little rodents are cute, but they sure are a pain. The are very adept at frying themselves in our electrical transformers. Sure causes a terrible noise!

How about some vasoline or yellow sticky stuff with some Hot red pepper- they put the pepper in bird seed to keep the little guys away.

Thanks everybody, I will call my county agent to see what they may say, but when I run them from the lower part of the tree they just start chewing up in the higher branches where I can't reach them. What gets me is that they never done this before. And the group of squirrels in the front yard isn't doing this to the one in the front or side yard.

Clayton, I'll trade you some Javalinas for some squirrel.....rather have squirrel stew. LOL I lost a Mimosa tree in Florida...and we had lots of squirrel around and they never feasted on the tree....but the Extension Office did tell me that the Mimosa was not a long-living tree. That doesn't help does it? Jo

TRY RUBBING BEN GAY IN A FEW PLACES. IT HAS WORKED FOR ME WITH HORSES----WHO KNOWS, MAYBE IT WILL WORK WITH THESE SQUIRRELS