YOUR GUIDE TO THE TWIN CITIES
Squirrels 1, Greengirl 0
Posted on June 7th, 2009 – 9:57 PMBy Jaime Chismar
I’ve been stabbed in the back by a fury fiend.
Last month, I saved two baby squirrels. How does the St. Louis Park squirrel population thank me? Sends one of its members to chomp down MY NORTH STAR PIE CHERRY TREE!
Why? Why!? WHY!!? The squirrels have full access to my compost bin! Why would they snap a tiny tree half?
This was the first year it flowered. It was full of tiny green fruits. A foot high stump is all that is left.
Thanks a lot, pal.
26 Responses to "Squirrels 1, Greengirl 0"
[…] Greengirls – […]
Squirrels earn no quarter from me. They once were cute adorable woodland creatures. Then I bought a home in St. Paul where they chewed a hole into the attic. And chewed. And chewed. They destroyed so much integrity in the roof that one half of the roof had to be rebuilt. Hearing squirrels fighting in your attic all winter long . . . during the middle of the night . . . causes one to lose all affinity to the creature. We ended up trapping 13 squirrels in the attic before they stopped coming in. We released each one on the opposite sided of the Mississippi River gorge just to be sure they wouldn’t be finding a way back.
Shouldn’t this post be filed in vermin? I have a chipmunk that will be on my short list of public enemies if he doesn’t quit chewing on the deck plants. I hope one of the feral cats eats him.
Squirrels should be considered one of the garden delectables you get to harvest occasionally, like the swiss shard you get to cut back occasionally for a nice side dish. The lucky gardener will have rabbits as a main course every now and then, with a side of greens they didn’t get to eat.
Are you certain it was squirrels? Did you actually see them chewing? Maybe they are taking the heat for rabbits?
The only squirrel that will get any love from me is a Fat Squirrel Nut Brown Ale from New Glarus brewing!
But seriously… squirrels are rabbits are not my friends. I am hoping that having a black lab barking and chasing them around the yard will help encourage them to stay away.
The squirrels spent the winter nibbling branch tips off my doug fir. Someone told me they do it for the moisture, though I’m skeptical. Why this year & not prior years?
Curmudgeon: perhaps Minneapolitans should team up & return the favor! 
I totally agree with all posters — while I admire your kind-heartedness in rescuing those baby squirrels, there’s no good deed that will go unpunished when it comes to rabbits and squirrels. I noticed a rabbit munching my neighbor’s new herb garden (which has been growing very nicely…so far) this morning on my way through the alley and I was mad for them.
Squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks (the latter LOVE new dirt and have made short work of my newly planted Ole rosebush) …. they are ALL destructive and I resent them. That said, a little red squirrel shows Up on my deck under the hanging birdfeeder and I am delighted. It’s discrimination on my part. I should loathe him, too. I don’t know how we’re supposed to live in harmony with these creatures and cultivate a garden, too. I use that expensive spray with mountain lion urine in it or whatever, and I seem to be the only one repelled by the odor.
>> The only squirrel that will get any love from me is a Fat Squirrel Nut Brown Ale from New Glarus brewing!
Love it!
Sorry about your rose bush, MNmom.
I’m going to pick up more chicken wire this afternoon. My yard is beginning to look like “plant jail.”
I firmly beleive in squirrelacide. My poor herb garden hasn’t had a chance to grow much because the damn things keep digging up the plants. They survive, but they aren’t getting much bigger. Makes me wish my terrier could climb trees.
A tree climbing terrier? That’s fantastic!
Now that the soil is supple, my squirrels are digging up everything.
Parsley? Sure!
Pansies? Heck yeah!
Unripe strawberries? Let’s bury them!
If the squirrels so much as look at one of my blueberry bushes, my yard is going to look like a young Vlad the Impaler grew up in the neighborhood.
I have a tree climbing terrier! Seriously, he’s climbed trees with low crotches and sturdy shrubs in pursuit of squirrels. (I have photos!) He hasn’t mastered the telephone pole, though.
The squirrels are digging near the root balls of all my new plants. I have been going around with a wheelbarrow of topsoil and filling everything in. Hopefully, they will get tired of the game before I do.
Rabbits destroyed my Graham Thomas rose last winter — ate it right down to the crown. It’s making a slow comeback. They also ate almost everything in the rose garden last year — pinks, geraniums, mallow, delphinium, even a poppy! So far, the only thing they seem to want this year is my variegated hosta! (Have I just jinxed myself?!)
Jaime, I’m so sorry about your tree! It’s one thing to lose a basil plant you can replace for a couple bucks, but a tree!? That stinks!
I’ve been pretty lucky over the years with the cat patrol in force. Attentive readers with long memories may recall the azaela chomped to nothing two winters ago. It was struggling so much I put it out of its misery this spring. That’s my biggest loss.
I’m giving the tree a chance to become a cherry bush this summer.
As I learned from an earlier post, life is too short for ugly plants. I can always get a new cherry tree.
Good for you for getting rid of that azalea, Judybusy!
Yep, tree rats. The St. Bernard’s keep them in check on our small 11 acre farm. Sugar Magnolia will have one cornered for you in no time. Maybe I should rent her out? hahaha.
Oh, that’s so sad. I put out two ground-level birdbaths last year in an attempt to prevent the squirrels from digging up my plants for the moisture. It helped a little bit, and I’ve actually seen the red squirrels run past new plants and drink right from the birdbath. (They come down the tree and hiss at me when I’m in my hammock, but that’s another story.) It’s the gray squirrels that seem to be doing the damage to my plants these days.
I have a beagle/bassett that hates squirrels too. He is useless at the tree climbing thing though with those short legs and heavy torso. Maybe he could sit on them once he catches them! The good news is that he is quite efficient on the ground, woe be to any slowpokes.
We had a squirrel and rabbit problem but it has gotten much better since Harriet, the red-tailed hawk, built a nest in our backyard a year ago..
I’m wondering with an earlier commenter if you’ve got the culprit straight. Chopping down small trees for fun is a much more rabbity thing than squirrely.
Rabbit damage is easy to diagnose- it looks like somebody cut the stem with a pair of pruning shears, at a 45% angle. (Deer leave a ragged break- with no incisors in the upper jaw, they grab and twist.)
And the cute bunnies work at night. Harder to see and pin the blame on them.
Ah, this is a good question, Greenpa.
The bite was clear across, perfectly perpendicular to the trunk. I assumed it was the squirrels because they’ve been biting through branches in my spruce trees.
Would a rabbit go after a tiny tree?
Burcusa - you are so lucky to have a red-tailed hawk in your yard! not just for reducing the mini-critter population but for their beauty!
we have two good patrol dogs so the squirrels don’t stay on the ground long enough to eat any plants - in the backyard. in front, despite being barked at incessantly, those gray rats eat tulip bulbs and pansies with abandon! oddly, they don’t touch my herbs or hosta.
Greengirls - thanks for this forum, i love it!
Jaime- the rabbits definitely would, and do. Sometimes it seems they cut them just for the heck of it.
But- that 45% angle is really almost universal for bunny slaughtered trees. Any chance you have a) snowshoe hares? or b) groundhogs? Both of those might well whack a tree they run into.
Swimming Lessons.
Greengirls Connie Nelson, Robyn Dochterman and Jaime Chismar are dishin' the dirt from the backyard garden and beyond. Whether you're a greenthumb or greenhorn, they're eager to learn from your misshaps, mistakes -- and most importantly, your sweet successes -- all growing season long.
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