I am sorry to read that you are having troubles with squirrels. We enjoy ours and they don't seem to do any damage here. I think that is because we put food out for them (well it was originally birdseed for our wild birds) but the squirrels got in on the act. I cannot think of what you can do to keep them off your bulbs etc except to suggest that you put some food out for them and they will leave the plants alone. I am sure that is not what you wanted to hear though.
Alison

They don't seem to have a predator that will cope with them other than man. And the Forestry Commission gave up on them years ago.

There is a concerted effort to keep them off a reserve in the Liverpool region. I don't know where nor what methods they use.

I think an airgun would do the trick. A BSA Meteor was about the best you could get when I was a lad. They are extrememly accurate. Or were.

In parts of the USA they are considered a delicacy. Perhaps a post to one of the US forums would help, if you are not hard hearted.

I was listening to a programme a few weeks ago on the radio where a restuarant had squirrel on the menu in some kind of expensive form of pat'e. It took 7 squirrels to make 10 portions of this particular dish !!!!
Anyway some people had objected and they had to remove it from the menu.
They had formed the opinion that the squirrel was fine to eat as long as they had been culled appropriately and all done above board. They had the squirrels from one supplier only.
It was a programme where people could phone in and one person who phoned was a pest controller who said that squirrels were the bane of his life and that they were vermin and who had no objection to killing them. Obviously there were other members of the public who felt differently. So there were arguements for and against.
In my own experience of them, they can do a lot of damage as they did when they got into my loft and decided to raise a family there. They chewed up all my husbands model aeroplanes and some of my christmas decorations. They pulled up a lot of the loft insulation to make their nest. We had to get them out and block up their entrance. My son is also a pest controller and he wanted to just kill them but I made him bring his humane traps and we let them free. They now live at the bottom of the garden in our sycamore tree and in the neighbours trees. They haven't been any trouble and have since raised 4 young. Myself and my neighbours all enjoy seeing them and their antics as they try to get the food put out for them and the birds. They live in harmony here with the other creatures in the garden. They have everything they need so don't need to cause any damage. In fact snails do more damage to my garden than the squirrels ever did. I don't kill them either. I feel they have every right to be alive as we have and there is always a solution to a problem. I hope you find the solution to your problem squirrels and do understand how frustrating it is to have plants destroyed.
Alison

The solution is large birds of prey and small foxes. Squirrels eat all the birds they can get hold of and naturally are adept nest robbers.

I sometimes wonder if they have done for the house sparrow.

I still like to watch them though. But would have no qualms dealing with them if I had to.

Perhaps a nest box for a bird of prey or a visit to such a place as this: http://www.cheshire-waterlife.co.uk/ might help.

I have not found any problems with my sparrows either. Am I just very lucky?? The birds and squirrels come down and feed at the same time. Last year when I did the birdwatch I had counted 20 sparrows amongst the garden birds. This year I had 30 so my family of squirrels hadn't made any impact on them. My neighbour did find a couple of broken birds eggs, but we were not sure wether it was the squirrel or the magpie that had done it. The magpie had been trying very hard to get to the nests in the hedge and the starlings had gone crazy with it until they scared it off altogether. It was a brilliant thing to watch because they just came from nowhere and the noise was tremendous.

Yes, this is a job for Mr Fox. Last November I arrived at a garden that I had been working in to find a headless squirrel lying on the main lawn. Elsewhere in the garden were the remains of several of the neighbour's hens. It could have been a dog, but I like to think it was Mr Fox. I've looked on Amazon, and Baum & Konig, but they don't sell foxes. I suppose it's the postage.

It's funny how squirrels can be such a hot subject. Where I work in the countryside they get shot on sight because they are bad-but then some who live on the estate are into shooting so it sometimes seems like anything for the kill. Living in a city squirrels at times are the only live wild mammals you may see. We have them in our garden and they never get out of control as cars seem to control them when they cross the street so numbers never explode. We feed them and they cause little harm other than sometimes burying things alittle to often. I have to laugh at their antics and love it when they dive for the wood pidgeons to scare them away. Now alittle story. My neighbour reaches through and places food for the squirrels on our bird table. One squirrel became so tame it finally started taking food from her hand. Then (and this is where it gets weepy) as she reached her hand out one morning it touched her hand with it's little paw as it took the nut. By T time it was dead having been hit by a car. My neighbour was devastated and actually stated she cried that night-she loves her pets etc.

The world seems to be full of sure-fire remedies for this and that (which usually don't work!) However, I have been told that giving the surrounding ground a good dose of cheap hair-spray is good for keeping them away (and anything else that hunts food by scent). At least its cheap to try!

Thankfully, our squirells confine themselves to food left out for them (and for the birds, of course).

best of luck,

Chris

They do seem to like certain types of bulbs, especially crocus bulbs, as I have found to my dismay. I planted hundreds one year and my bright anticipation turned to horror the following spring when only a bare handful emerged. Even these were polished off within a few days. The following year I tried just a few chinodoxa and they came through untouched. They self seed quite rapidly so I reckoned they might be worth a try and less expensive in the long run.

Have you tried dressing peanuts with chili pepper powder and eaving them out for the squirrels. I gather that this does not harm birds who are, apparently, unaffected by chilli. I also have seen prepared peanuts for sale in garden centres.

Squrrels ate every bud off my climbing rose this year and they just returned to have a go at the second crop. If possible try guarding precious plants with chicken wire --the green coated sort doesn't show up too much. I have considered using an air rifle but I don't like killing even vermin unnecessarily and I don't think it is effective for long as the population just increases/spreads out to fill the gap. The same is true for rabbits, deer and moorhens.
I keep a water pistol at the ready which doesn't deter them much but relieves my feelings !

The reserve in the Liverpool region is the Ainesdale reserve and there they will be trying to keep the greys out cause it has a thriving population of red sqirrels.I think its best defence is that the area is surrounded by arable land with no hedges and the greys will not invade across several miles of open farmland.
I have just come back from Scotland where they had red sqirrels and they were very concerned about greys invading the valley. They reckoned the greys carried a disease that was fatal to red sqirrels. I have heard of bait dosed with rat poison being used. Trouble is there are so many grey sqirrels it is virtually impossible to stem the tide...a bit like King Canute.
Years ago I used an air rifle on a grey sqirrel and was unsuccessful. It ran up a pine tree and as I peered up the tree looking for another shot I was hit right between the eyes by a pine cone. I retired with my pride hurt!!

Score one for the grey indjuns:)

Thanks for ideas. Its either hairspray, chilli powder or a 12 bore shotgun!!