Sorry, my one experience in trying to use netting to protect my lychee crop 'netted' me three dead black snakes in 2 days. The netting has to reach down to the ground to keep the squirrels away, (still didn't work) and the snakes come along, stick their heads through the net, then get stuck when the fatter part of their body can't pass through.

Black snakes are a great benefit to my garden, keeping the rodent population in check here. So, nope, never ever using bird netting in my garden again.

I had short term success using bridal veil netting on my papayas. It kept the birds and insects at bay, but the squirrels tore right through it as soon as the fruit smelled ripe.

I had to give up netting here as well because lizards kept getting tangled up in it and it was really tough getting them cut out of it to keep them from dying.

Yeah, the last snake that I found in the bird netting was still alive when we got to it. My brave ! husband, who is terrified of snakes, held the netting for me while I tried to cut the snake free. Sadly it had injured itself too badly by thrashing around in the net, and I found it that evening, dead.

A good article, but I must agree with the previous reply's. Netting is a killer, not only to animals, but birds as well, who get tangled up in it. Far better are cages, if the area is not that big. One solution I have been told if you do use netting, is to leave some old fruit outside of it on the ground, so the animals do not attempt to get inside the area you are protecting. But don't shoot the messenger if it doesn't work.

We killed 2 birds when we tried it a few years ago and I won't use it now. I would like to find a good way to get more fruit but killing the birds is not worth a few extra peaches for me. The only time we had really big harvest was when we had cats in the garden. Now we live out of town and the coyotes run in packs so the cats stay in!

I have a great gadget called a "Scarecrow sprinkler" that has an electric eye and an impulse sprinkler that sends a strong 3 second burst of water each time the electric eye is triggered.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0001A9TDS/

It works in the front yard outside the fence to guard my lychees, but the tree gets watered quite a bit if it is windy and the leaf movement triggers the sprinkler. Even works at night, against the raccoons and rats.

In the back yard, every time I've set it out to guard the mango tree, the cat comes in wet and angry. We're lucky here, no coyotes and our yard has a 6ft. fence all around which deters other predators, too. So my issues are with squirrels and raccoons stealing my wonderful mangoes. In the daytime I patrol the yard regularly, and this deters the squirrels quite a bit, but at night not much you can do to prevent a raccoon short of trapping them.

It has worked well for me, I'm sorry Yall's results weren't as good. I just lay mine across the top of the bush and gather it around the middle. My plants are too big to try and cover the entire bush. I'm just hate that snakes that Yall want to keep were eliminated but I can't share your same enthusiasm. I hate them!!!!

When I read your reports about snakes, raccoons, coyotes and all the other things I'm glad I live in good old England. The most dangerous thing in my garden is the Wife.

John don't leave out the flying varmints…mosquitos and egrets(they eat my fish).