Squirrels Be Gone?

I am absolutely amazed at this simple remedy for squirrels in my flower box. Quite some time ago I wrote about how squirrels were destroying my flower box. I have been unable to stop them from ravaging the dirt and tossing it around the deck.

Pre-Planting Discovery

I have two flower boxes that are attached to the deck railing. I have yet to plant flowers in them this season because I usually wait to see how many of last year’s flowers return. Although I plant annuals, I find that over the past few years, they have been returning each year. I just have to wait until mid June to see if anything sprouts.

While the two empty flower boxes were sitting on the porch waiting for flowers to sprout, I noticed the squirrels would leap from the tree, onto the deck railing, run over the first box and run to the second box to begin digging. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why they would run over the first box to get to the second one.

A Duh Moment

At first, I thought because the B-B-Q grill was located near the first flower box the squirrels were afraid of the grill. Not the case. They ran on top of the grill too.

Then I realized that in the first flower box, I left the spade gardening tool that I use for planting the flowers. It sat out there all winter long. In addition to the spade, I have a small solar panel which generates power for my deck’s solar lights.

Could it be the items sticking out of the flower box that’s deterring the squirrels from digging? To test this outlandish theory, I removed the spade from box number 1 and placed it in box number 2. Now each box had something protruding from it.

I Think It’s Working

It has been three days now and the most I’ve witnessed is a squirrel running over box number 1 over to box number 2. When it got to box 2, it ran over it and onto the deck railing. It did not stop to dig in the flower box.

I get to observe these things because I work from home and often will sit at the kitchen table with my laptop. The squirrel movement always catches my eye (that’s how I got to see them dig the dirt out of the boxes in the first place).

Will this do the trick? I don’t know but you can bet if it works, I’ll come back to let you know. If it doesn’t, there will be another post with me lamenting about the pesky squirrels destroying my flower box.

UPDATE 6/30/2011: I’m pleased to report that not a single squirrel has dug in my flower box since placing the spade in the dirt.  Who knew?