We used to have semi-feral barn cats that kept all of these wild things at bay. In the 3 years since their demise/disappearance, the wildlife, especially that chipmunks have gotten out of control!!!!!!!!

We have stone walls around our property and it is like the chipmunk capital of CT!! This spring alone, we have trapped and re-homed 17 chipmunks to the corn fields several miles away. there were days when we caught 3 in a day!!!!

They are really sending me over the deep end though!! The have dug up every single crocus bulp in my yard!! I have (had) them around an oak tree with hosta plants and now there are perfect holes every 12 inches all the way around the base!!!

then everytime I dig a hole and plant a new daylily they have to come along and partially dig them up! I am not using anything special, just the dirt from the gardens!!!

Sometimes I can plant one and go inside and 15 minutes later there are already small holes!!


In addition there was something bigger last week that completely dug up 2 new plants and my brand new evergreens that I had just planted plus a well established daylily!!!

Oh and they are digging up the random sunflowers that are coming up in one of my gardens! They aren't eating them just digging them up and tossing them!! Do you think they are going to find their missing relatives in all of those holes???

What in the world are these pesky critters looking for??

Do you have earth worms, and grubs? That is probably what the larger critter is after.

I feel for you! For several years, we've had this miserable little chipmunk who has made it his mission in life to keep me from growing peas. I can't plant bulbs anywhere but in containers, kept up high, and even then he still manages to get to them once in a while. Seems to leave my daylilies alone, though.
I know Milorganite keeps deer away, maybe it's also protecting my daylilies from chipmunks?

I have to admit, that is one of the reasons I have a cat. When our previous cat passed away, and I did not replace her for a year, I had a terrible time with mice, moles, voles and chipmunks. Not only did they dig up and destroy all of my crocus, lilies, and other bulbs, they even ate all my Oriental poppies down to nubs. Then the mice started chewing on our cars. That was the final, expensive straw. So, off to the animal shelter, and in came Delph. She has solved the problem, thank goodness.

We have a visiting raccoon that comes around a lot in the spring/fall when I am planting daylilies. He usually does not damage the plant, I figure he is too lazy to actually dig to search for grubs and worms. This spring I had to move a bunch of daylilies because of rebuilding our deck. I moved those in clumps and replanted in the yard. One was a large clump. The raccoon tried his best to dig it up, breaking every scape off at ground level, and did manage to separate some of the clump. Destroyed several fans, but the rest came back fine fortunately. I started putting heavy rocks around the plants I moved, and moved the rocks away after a couple weeks or so. Works so far.

Terry, I regularly use Milorganite and it seems to deter the deer the most.

I have used the bonide stuff....... nothing.

I poured and 2 entire 8 oz bottles of cinnamon all over where the bulbs were....... had heard that they don't like it......... nothing.

I have the mole/vole sonic things and it does work for them, but not the chipmunks.

And the front yard and my actual flower beds and front landscaping got a second healthy application of the bayer brand of grub control.

So I guess we will continue the catch and release program.

Maybe someday we will get another outdoor cat. It is just so hard to have barn cats when we have fox and coyote and fishercats!!!!

Luckily, our cat is willing to stay indoors at night. She is outside most of the day, except to come in for supper. We have trained her to expect treats in the evening, so she comes back for those, then she will stay inside overnight and is very quiet. She has breakfast and back out on patrol in the morning. She has turned out to be a lovely cat, and a sweet companion. Not for rodents, though!

I once was planting crocus bulbs in the garden, and I looked over my shoulder and a chipmunk was digging the newly planted bulbs in another location, not 6 feet away from me. So nervy!

I have planted crocus under hardware cloth (wire mesh), buried an inch or so under the ground and that works.

So I don't know if I really want to go back to the trouble of caging my bulbs, but I may be winning the battle with digging of my freshly planted plants.

Someone mentioned chives on a fb page. They were referring to raccoons, but heck, I have a massive pot of chives and nothing better to try, so I grabbed a large handful, chopped them into bits and spread them around and after 3 days, they seem to be working.