How to Stop Squirrels from Digging in Your Garden

You might be annoyed at the squirrels that are always digging your garden, creating a lot of mess and destroying your plants. If that is what happens, then you need to learn how to stop squirrels from digging in your garden.

The reason why the squirrels love to dig the garden is because they want to store their food for winter. However, they often forget where they store the food, which is why they often dig more holes in the garden in the process of finding their food. Furthermore they also often damage the plants around them, especially softwood trees. This is why you need to stop them.

How to Stop Squirrels from Digging in Your Garden

• Do not feed them
  You might find the squirrels cute and adorable which make you want to feed them. But this is actually what makes them come back to your garden and destroy it. If they see that food is available in the garden, then they will even bring other squirrels into your garden. So, do not feed the squirrels in the first place.

• Keep the trash away
  Trash, especially food trash will attract scavengers including squirrels to enter your garden. Thus try to keep the trash away as best as you can. Use thick trash bags which are sturdier and then put them inside sealed containers.

• Remove other food sources from your garden
  You might not realize it but there are still other food sources in the garden such as bird feeders and pet foods that you put outside. So it is better to keep the pet foods indoors so the squirrels would not get to them. Then you need to use bird feeders with sturdy material so it can prevent the squirrels from getting into them.

• Protect your garden beds
  How to stop squirrels from digging in your garden if you grow seeds in the garden beds? Then you need to protect it by spreading mesh netting on top of the garden beds. This will make it difficult for the squirrels from accidentally digging up the seedlings and damage their roots.

• Put predators imitation
  There are a few predators that naturally hunt for rodents like the squirrels such as fox and owl. Of course, you might not have them in your garden naturally so you might want to put an imitation instead. Try to find one that is more realistic so it would be more believable. Then you also need to get liquid scents of those predators that can help to make their presence more real.

• Protect your house
  There’s a little drawback from cleaning your garden from all food sources as the squirrels might start to target your house instead. Thus, you need to protect your house and make sure there are no open areas that can be used to access your house especially when you are not home. That way, the squirrels cannot enter your house contaminating the food and disturbing your pets.

• Get pets
  Pets, especially dogs, love to chase away squirrels. They really have so much fun doing it. So, you can try to make use of this natural behavior by getting a few pets yourself. If you are a dog lover then this will be the perfect method for you.

• Create repellant spray
  If the predator scent is not strong enough to repel the squirrels? Then you might want to create a repellant spray. The squirrels do not lack strong odors so you can use the spray to prevent them from digging the garden. There are a few scents that they do not like such as peppers, cinnamon, vinegar, cloves, citronella, garlic, cloves, peppermint, and lemongrass.

• Grow repellant plants
  If you do not want to bother spraying your garden with repellant spray then you can try to grow repellant plants instead. The squirrels naturally stay away from those plants and it can be a good way to decorate your garden too. There are a few plants that you can grow such as bay, allium, choisya ternata, geranium, eucalyptus, lemongrass, lemon balm, peppermint, penny royal, tarragon, rosemary, and lavender.

How to stop squirrels from digging in your garden? As you can see, there are a few things that you can use to naturally stop the squirrels from destroying the garden.