Squirrel deterrent working

I live in a rocky, woody area with lots of old tall trees and have Squirrels, Chipmunks and Moles as neighbors. My dog is a large puppy @95lbs. and less than 2 years old. She has absolutely no prey drive so she does not help. I was concerned about my bulbs, her eating what I put down and eradicating the animals from my yard alltogether which is not my goal.
Here is what I tried.....I mixed Comosum in with my small "tasty" bulbs (Anemone etc.), Narcissus and Allium amongst my large bulbs (Tulips, Fritillaria etc). To top this off I have mixed moth balls in with Sphagnum and sprinkled it over the entire bulb area. I put cracked pepper on top of the spaghnum so my dog does not eat any of the balls (the loose sphag makes her sneeze alone and the pepper adds some additional unpleasantness). I also laid out a few moth balls and sprayed her with Bitter Apple every time she investigated to close to them (sounds mean but it's a great training tool and she avoids them). For my more rare/expensive bulbs I put mothballs in with the bulbs and small Narcissus sections around. Several days even with heavy rains washing the moth balls has kept them damage free. I'll keep you posted if interested.

S. So, tell us how your bulbs are doing!?! Everyone seems interested in other posts on how to repel the skunks, moles, squirrels, etc.,

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/406888/

and it sounds like you have a plan in place! t.

Well it's working 90%. I've seen a few holes but just a minor number. I think reading everyone else's we know nothing is foolproof but this seems to have done the trick for the most part here. Thanks! Susie

S. We must see pictures of your garden in the spring. It sounds like it will be lovely!

I interplanted some allium around to try out your approach and I also planted several Frittilaria Persica
to keep the deer away (I hope) although the catalog said it smelled 'skunkish'!

We'll see come spring, but so far so good! t.

I just use used cat litter. works good. It's free. And doesn' t cause other animals pain, like red pepper does.

Does the kitty litter not harm the soil? It is an absorbent. If used, it contains alot of salt. It is also used to clean up oil spills.

Sugarweed,

In my experience, you only need a couple of tablespoons of it in each place, so I'd have to say that it's not harmful. april

Does the cat litter attract any other cats? We no longer have a cat, and I'm not quite willing to get one just for this byproduct ;o)

But my biggest fear would be that sprinkling used cat litter *might* act as an open invitation to the neighborhood cats to use my beds as their personal litterbox (not that they need much encouragement...)

Well, this is also being discussed in another forum, and over there if I recall, they say it's the best only if it's soaked in urine. AAuuck. I don't think they said about other cats.

The mothballs are not a good idea. They are extremely poisonous and even though they are smelly many animals will not avoid them. If a child (or animal)had a cold or allergy they might not be able to smell them at all and in any case naptha (the main ingredient in mothballs) is a BIG carcinogen. Some ways to protect your bulbs are to plant them in baskets or boxes made out of chicken wire, use lots of dried hot pepper on the soil over the bulbs or plant lots of daffodils or hyacynths around the more expensive bulbs. Those bulbs are poisonous and the animals won't eat them so they protect the other bulbs. When I plant tulips and dutch iris I also plant daffodils that bloom at other times. For example if the tulips bloom in May I plant daffodils that bloom in march or april. Jessamine

Squirrel invasions are pretty much over as fruiting trees and shrubs have all dropped in my area so I wouldn't be lulled into a false sense of security thinking any action taken is actually working at this time of year and rely upon it exclusively for next year. I've held off planting my bulbs because of all the problems with squirrels that were out there doing their thing. I find that once the ground freezes, the problems are gone so for me... taking my bulb auger and sticking the bulbs in the ground the first few weeks of December avoids a lot of extra time and expense and increases my chances of having more bulbs staying put to reward me by coming up next year. Any bulbs that I don't get in the ground will get placed in a great big bin of soil to overwinter in my garage. Incredibly, I have found that these bulbs do just as well being planted outside in early March as those planted now. Go figure.

Mothballs, in my opinion, have no place in any garden for many of the reasons stated by Jessamine above. The carcinogenic properties of naptha are very real. Mothballs really do look like nice big peppermint jawbreakers to children.

Cats, ugh! I suppose a little used cat litter might make them choose to select other areas in which to urinate and defecate. Yet on the other hand, cats are territorial and you most probably are inviting the offender to come back and re-stake his/her claim to the immediate area by spraying and scratching to spread more of his/her scent around. This has happened by me repeatedly over the past few years and crystallized urine is no fun nor are claw marks at the bases of trees. Repellents never did work with any consistency for me but perhaps that was because my area was inundated with feral cats. Feral and stray cats have been a definite issue in my area. So far I have found only one sure fire way to control them that works... setting a HavAHart trap, baiting it, and calling Animal Control to pick up the ferals. Ferals are humanely destroyed by Animal Control. The damage to my screened in porch where all the urine pooled at the bases of the window frames cost me a few thousand dollars and I see that all of the window frames are in need of being replaced yet again as a result of spraying cats attempting to show my indoor only cats who was boss. The toll on my personal cats inside my home was too high as two contracted a nasty airborne virus from the ferals. One of my cats died this time last year from a mutated strain of the virus and another has a damaged neurological system but he is alive. My personal cats currently are and always have been indoor only cats. Add to this the fact that the ferals were hanging out underneath my birdfeeders, taunting my dogs, ate my favorite chipmunk, reproducing, and were digging in and around my plantings and that made me one very frustrated and depressed little person. I am not saying this is for everyone as some people may not be able to handle the humane destruction of them but... I do ask everyone to consider the following before they judge me too harshly... everyone is opposed to stem cell research UNTIL it happens to them. Loosing one of my personal cats to an airborne virus that had mutated for which there exists no vaccine was what did it for me. I played nice nice by purchasing and using every repellent known to mankind with the feral cats until that happened. I have neighbors who have lost so many bales of hay as a result of all the spraying who are setting out poison for the feral cats which I personally feel is barbaric and besides which, the poison ends up in the food chain. I did finally get one of them to start using a trap and calling Animal Control. One neighbor no longer indiscriminately setting out poison that other animals can get into is better than none I suppose and that person claimed they had no idea a death from poisoning was so brutal. I think they bought a model #1045.

If anyone is interested, here is a link to one of the exact models I use-
http://www.tritonpc.com/havahart_cage_trap__1050.htm
It enables me to release any skunks, opossums, or raccoons that get in there.

Thank you so much for giving me a good reason for not feeding stray cats. No I have never, but I have some crazy friends that also have indoor cats and still catch wild cats, have them neutered and turn them loose on the world again. That's the last, contact. They continue to feed them and also others they have not "fixed".
Recently one found a small rabid opossum 15' out the back door. Auuggh!!!

Your friends that are spaying and neutering them are good people. Very few and far between are interested in taking a feral cat in let alone investing in it by spending $25 to get it fixed. Around here, I have just learned that Animal Control works with ferals up to about 20 weeks of age to see if they can turn them around to be able to send them to the shelter for adoption. The shelters around here will not knowingly tak a feral... not enough homes to go around for the ones they already have. I realize there are very few people who are willing to share their home with a feral cat and I totally understand why as nobody wants to get hurt. At least there are a few more out there that aren't breeding down in your neck of the woods thanks to some good hearted people. And I am not a proponent of spay and release because it perpetuates a heck of a lot of unvaccinated critters being out there but it's better than nothing.