Todd_Renshaw

I have sporadic trouble with squirrels here in Michigan. I live in an area with many big, old trees and a healthy squirrel population living in them. Some of my bonsai never get touched, others (usually those with thinner bark like a nice Elephant Bush/Dwarf Jade* or my azaleas) seem to be like candy to them.

*Had a big bite taken out of the trunk a couple years ago. It'll probably never heal over completely.

Dana Quattlebaum from Brussel's Bonsai gave me this tip: watch for the squirrels to bite into your trees during times of drought. (What they're looking for is water.) I kept a bin of water available for them last summer (away from the bonsai) and didn't notice any new bite marks. But I also take one extra precaution from about mid-summer to fall; I cover my thin-barked bonsai with bird netting. The netting can be a real pain sometimes because it has to be unentangled from the foliage whenever I want to rotate, pick-up or otherwise move my bonsai. But on the plus side, you can water right through it and it doesn't obstruct your view of the bonsai. (Of course, it's a bit distracting, visually. If you anticipate any visiting Japanese dignitaries will drop by, you'd want to clear the netting off for a while!)

I'll bet a squirrel could bite right through if it really wanted to get inside, but it's just enough of a deterrent to make them go somewhere else. The netting can also be cut to different sizes to make it more manageable. I try to group my bonsai together by height and cover 5 to 10 of them with a single piece of netting. (Seems less trouble than covering each individually.) Be sure that the width of the netting is enough that you can have plenty of excess to stuff up around the pots, or tuck underneath. The squirrels will find any gaps!

As for digging in the pots, that could happen at any time of the year, but I notice it most in the fall when the squirrels are burying maple seeds, (for their winter food caches). They're burying their food everywhere, all day long and the bonsai just happen to be convenient. The bird netting is usually enough of a discouragement to stop most of this.

I've also used dried blood meal and ground cayenne pepper sprinkled on my bonsai soil or around the perimeter of my bonsai bench, but I've found that it tends to wash away quickly.

Todd