Squirrel attack!
Fri, 08/07/2009 - 01:38 — Jennifer
We had been getting some nice blooms on our two surviving sunflower plants, and I got two good sets of data, when the squirrels decided it was time to have a sunflower banquet. They've gone through pretty much all the blossoms. There are one or two buds left on the plants, but not many. I don't mind sharing with the squirrels, but given a chance they eat EVERYTHING.
Two questions:
1) Can anyone recommend a humane way to keep squirrels away from sunflowers?
2) Is it too late in the season to plant another round of sunflowers and, if not, should I use seeds from the original plants? We live in Washington, D.C., so the growing season extends pretty far into the fall.
Thanks!
Jennifer
Squirrel Attacks
Jennifer,
Last summer, a large, agressive squirrel began attacking and eating my sunflowers before the buds had opened. I tried applying a homemade spray of chili / garlic spray, using a little bit of dish soap to make it stick to the plant. For awhile, the squirrel stayed away, then resumed devouring my flower buds. Finally I draped bird netting over the plants. This did prevent further attacks, but detracted from the beauty of the plants. I've not seen this large squirrel this year or experienced these attacks. My flowers have just begun to bloom, so I hope the little critter has moved on.
Squirrels might be eating sunflower pests
Jennifer,
Boy, that's disappointing. I know how you feel; four of our six plants went down before their flowers opened, and I saw gray squirrels messing with two of them before and after the stems collapsed.
In our case, though, it turned out the squirrels were probably after insect larvae burrowing in the sunflower stalks. They didn't touch the blossoms.
You might want to check the undersides of the blossom remains, if you can, to see if anything has bored into them. If you find brownish holes, the squirrels probably were going for the larvae that made them.
Squirrels usually leave our sunflowers alone until the seeds have fully matured. So, if you're talking about gray squirrels, it may not be necessary or even desirable to keep them away while the blooms are still green. But, once the pollen is all gone from any bloom, you may want get that old bloom off. If you don't, and if you can't protect the plants 24/7, the squirrels will eventually knock the whole plant over, along with its remaining flowers, to get to the ripe seeds.
If you want to let your seeds ripen fully, you might need to surround your plants with chicken wire or nylon mesh fencing -- sides, top, and several inches into the soil, and at least a foot away from the blooms on all sides. Or, if you have a fenced yard, a family dog will usually do a great job of keeping squirrels in the trees and out of your garden (probably doesn't sound like it, but it is humane; up until last year, for 35 years, we'd always had at least one dog in our yard -- they ranged in size from 30 to 80 lbs -- and our dogs never caught a single squirrel). Even the recent scent of a dog in the yard seems to make squirrels stay in or near the trees; although our dogs slept inside, the squirrels stayed off our corn all summer long (Warning Note: when, one year, we took the dogs with us for a long weekend away, all we found when we returned were empty cobs -- the neighbors said it was a "squirrel orgy" all Sunday long).
Sorry I can't answer your question about a second planting.