Tulips v. Squirrels
November 17th, 2005 
by Susan Harris
This critter could be eating one of my tulip bulbs, maybe even enough of them to ruin my meticulously planned Tulip Design of 2006 (alert the media.) But in 2005 every one of the tulips I planted came up, so I’ll tempt fate here and say I found a fool-proof formula for squirrel deterrence. To wit: red pepper flakes - cheap and plentiful. I throw a few flakes into each hole just above the bulb before replacing the rest of the dirt. I see squirrels perusing the border but they don’t even dig.
So squirrels, to you I say: HA!
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November 17th, 2005 at 6:41 pm
Great idea! I’m going to try it.
May 13th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
We moved into our new house on 12/29/2007. A few weeks ago, we noticed a beautiful row of tulips that, obviously, had been planted by the previous owners. One evening recently, I noticed that we only had stems and no longer had any of the yellow bulbs. I thought that perhaps they had closed for the evening (like a rose does). However, it’s now been 3 days, and the yellow has not returned. Have we been victimized by squirrels? Will the stems automatically “re-bulb” or do we need to plant new tulips?