I am hoping someone can help me save my flowers this year. We are overrun with chipmunks and rabbits. They totally stripped all of my flowers last year and I heard that if you spray them with cayenne pepper they will not eat them ~ Well~ that didn't stop them. I sure hope someone has an answer for this problem.
Helen, I tried cayenne pepper too without any success. Other remedies recommended to me that I've tried without any luck were sprinkling human hair over the plants, as well as blood meal. However, the thing that did work was cat hair! I brushed my cats and sprinkled their fur over the plants and the critters did not like that! If you think about it, it gives off the scent of a predator and I supposed that's why they then stayed away. Good luck!
I tried all of the above except for the cat hair. What I found effective was hot pepper wax which I purchased at a garden store. Spray it on. Or Repels All. They really helped! (I may have used them both!)
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
How can I keep rabbits from eating my tulips and other plants?
By Amy C.S.
Hi Amy...There are a number of things to help with this problem that won't hurt the bunnies. These tips also work with deer and mice/voles. They don't work well if squirrels are eating the tulips. I watched a cute little red squirrel one year chomp on my beautiful Red Appledorn tulips! Bunnies, deer and mice have very sensitive noses and are afraid of movement.
You can take strong scented unused fabric softener sheets, clothespin them to bamboo skewers and place them around the tulips. If you have a fence around the tulips you can clip them to the fence. You can also take one of the little muslin drawstring bags (you can find them at a feed store), take a small piece of original scent Irish Springs soap and put it in the bag, close the bag and again clip it to either the skewers or a fence. It is the odor that they don't like so the stronger smelling the better.
You can also buy some of those inexpensive (think Dollar Store) aluminum whirly things on a stick and stick them around the plants. They will usually turn with just a slight breeze and it scares the animals. Plus it will make you the talk of the neighborhood as the eccentric neighbor! But it really does work.
I am a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and an advanced master gardener and I do talks on how to have gardens with harming the animals. Good luck and happy gardening.
