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I think I may have found the cure and need volunteers to repeat my experiment to see if it works for anyone else .. here is how I discovered it.
My neighbor is profoundly depressed and I made it my mission last Summer to get her out of it - (she was in a horrible car accident 10 years ago and never got over it - I'm happy to say my slow but systematic plan is working .. she's interested in gardening again) .. I had been after her all winter to get bags of topsoil and lay the unopened bags in the area where she wanted her new bed. She never did but I started some seeds for her in March anyway .. suddenly about a month ago her anticipation and happiness level ratcheted up amazingly fast and she decided she had to have her garden and asked me for suggestions. I figured what the heck it was worth a try cause I knew whatever she planted would be dead in a week cause she counts on mother nature to water everything. So we went and bought bunches of bags of that cheap Evergreen topsoil (that has to be the sorriest stuff right out of the bag that ever was .. how they call it topsoil is beyond me, but makes a good filler) at Lowes and dumped it out on the grass and planted. I knew in a few days time that everything she had planted would be dug up by the squirrels or parched. Happily and amazingly she's been out almost every day watering, weeding and feeding. Two weeks ago I noticed something that perplexed me .. not one of her plants or actually anywhere in the bed had been disturbed by squirrels! What did she do that I didn't? This is where serendipity occurred. I had set up three large containers for morning glories this year - two were already filled with Pro-Mix and the third one was only 1/3 of the way filled so I dumped some empty 2 liter bottles in it then topped it off to within 4 inches of the top with the aforementioned Evergreen top soil. I was planning to top that off with the Pro-Mix once the mg seedlings were ready for transplanting. I immediately went and looked at the container with the Evergreen top soil in it and it was untouched! The other two containers filled with Pro-Mix had obviously been invaded by squirrels. Whoa!! I picked up a handful of the Evergreen topsoil out of the bag and smelled it .. there was a faint odor of cedar!
So I went and top dressed half of my squirrel targeted pots with the Evergreen top soil. So far not one has been dug into - the other untreated pots had been! So I just came in from top dressing EVERYTHING with the Evergreen topsoil.
My next experiment will be to get some cedar shavings from PetSmart and scatter those around and see if I get the same results to confirm it's the cedar that is deterring them.
I'd love for other squirrel vexed people to try this .. I've only seen this stuff at Lowes .. it's Evergreen topsoil and cost about $1.39 a bag. If you try it .. let me know your results!
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