If you have ever watched squirrels closely in your City of Toronto garden, for any length of time you will quickly know that squirrels are smarter than humans.
Yes that’s right, squirrels are smarter than us, may as well get over it. They are truly street smart. So the best thing you can do is to learn to plant your garden with bulbs that they won’t be interested in eating.
I have several of the following in my Toronto garden, however I have little luck with getting my tulips to the flowering stage. This inspired me to research bulbs that my friendly little garden squirrels run from.
Buy these bulbs in the fall and plant them before the ground freezes. Some of them are most easily available from mail order bulb suppliers. Most of them need to “ harden off” for about 6 weeks before they will show you their best blooms next spring.
Here are 10 Squirrel Proof Bulbs.
1/ Crown imperial ( Fritillaria Imperialis) Otherwise known as stinky bulbs. Hold your nose while planting. Very exotic in the spring garden. Producing bright orange, yellow and red bell shaped flowers.
2/Ornamental onions( Allium) Pretty cousins of the home cooking onion a lovely ornamental, but pungent and putting off the squirrels. There are many too choose from but the Purple Sensation is one of the prettiest. A lovely flower sitting atop a long elegant stem.
3/Daffodils ( Narcissus) These are available in many delightful varieties. Rip Van Winkle, Tete a Tete and large trumpets, double jonquil and fragrant ones. The squirrels will run from them. Fill your front garden with naturalized daffys.
4/Squill (Scilla Siberica). These are deep blue, ground hugging bulbs that blanket hillsides in the spring. Scilla siberica is one of the easiest to grow and naturalizes easily spreading through your garden.
5/ Snow Crocus ( Crocous tommasinianus). If you can’t image without spring plant these Crocus. They bloom early and the squirrels tend to give them a pass.
6/ Grape Hyacinths ( Muscari) Plant a couple dozen of these and in a few years they will have spread throughout your garden. They are good companions for daffodils, they are tiny flowering spike and are also lovely to bring a couple dozen spikes indoors to sit in a small bowl on your dinner table.
7/ Spanish Bluebells ( Hyacinthoides hispanica) Charming dimunitive flower spike form tiny carillons of pink, blue or white bell-shaped flowers. Squirrels definitely don’t like these.
8/ Hyacinths ( Hyacinthus) These are blowsy Victorian favorites, squirrels will avoid them. The outer layer of the bulb is full of calcium oxalate which can cause skin rashes. Wear gloves when you plant these bulbs.
9/ Quamash ( Camassia ) Native to North America, they cohabitate peacefully with squirrels. Squirrels leave this blue-flowering spring bloomer alone.
10/ Glory of the Snow ( Chionodoxa) Very pretty , squirrel proof, they naturalize at a fast rate and can be quite invasive. However they only bloom for a few weeks in the spring.