FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hello!

I'm new to taking care of carnivorous plants and I currently have 1 Venus flytrap & 2 sundews. I leave my plants outside and I've had a problem the past few weeks where this squirrel keeps ripping them out of their pots. Every morning I'll wake up and see my poor plants on the ground, their pot empty, and dirt everywhere. Has this happened to anyone else? I thought this was so odd since they're not food. I feel like this would make more sense if I was growing tomatoes or something. Any advice on how to deter this crazy squirrel? Just last week I woke up and one of my sundews was completely GONE. The pot was empty and I couldn't find the plant anywhere. I was so upset especially because it was flowering

Unfortunately, you've either got to get rid of the squirrel (if that's what it is, which is a good possibility) or exclude the squirrel by enclosing the plants in a cage. A roll of hardware cloth (wire mesh) in 1" or smaller should exclude most squirrels. Personally I use 1/2" and 1/4" just because I had a good bit on hand. @Panman has the Squirrel Defense 5000 which is actually a tubular greenhouse that he got off of Amazon or eBay (I think) and enclosed it with 1" mesh chicken/poultry wire rather than clear plastic. It's a large structure, big enough to walk into. Very nice!

My cages are much smaller...basically I can set several pots (the number depending on sizes) in one of my round cages. They're simple, just unroll the roll of hardware cloth and form a circle as big as you want it to be and cut it there, then tie the ends together with short pieces of wire or twine, I prefer wire. You can add a top if you want to. Right now I have two of these ring/cages. I had a spare, already cut piece of hardware cloth so I lay it on top of both cages. Here is a shot of my first cage (no top) housing my biggest pot...a styrofoam minnow bucket. I've added another ring/cage since this one. Then there are rectangular cases the size of a large table in between my small cages and Panman's greenhouse-type structure. It all depends on your resources, how many plants you have, and how serious you are about the hobby. I'm thinking about a somewhat larger structure for myself...probably in the table-size.

It would be nice not to have to have the cages around the plants, but you've already found out that if you're going to keep growing them you'll have to protect them with cages...or, get rid of the squirrels. Best wishes and welcome to the forum! Check out the seed bank!

Man, that used to happen all the time with my flytraps.

Ever since we moved, the squirrel problem has been solved. The new problem? The heat.

This is why I mostly grow plants I can keep indoors. Less squirrels, more controllable climate.

Right. You want the squirrels to stop messing with your plants. I had an issue with the animals ripping up traps to steal the prey, which is not cool. So I put my outdoor carnivores on a table with a ring of spiky cacti around them. Held off the animals just fine.

Or you can opt for a simpler solution and just barricade the plants in somehow.

Also welcome!

I think a guy in this forum mentioned sticking multiple toothpicks on the soil around the plant to discourage little critters apparoaching it.

I tried the toothpicks...the squirrels appreciated them as after destroying a plant or two they would then sit around picking their teeth while wearing some very small white sleeveless t-shirts and talking about romantic escapades from their high school days.

Intheswamp wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 11:36 am I tried the toothpicks...the squirrels appreciated them as after destroying a plant or two they would then sit around picking their teeth while wearing some very small white sleeveless t-shirts and talking about romantic escapades from their high school days.

So that didnt work i never had critter problems, stray cats here shows no interest in plants.

We’ll, I was joking a tad. But, the redneck squirrels around here I don’t think would be slowed down by the toothpicks. I *have* heard of folks using them. To what degree of success I don’t know, though.

Intheswamp wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 2:30 am We’ll, I was joking a tad. But, the redneck squirrels around here I don’t think would be slowed down by the toothpicks. I *have* heard of folks using them. To what degree of success I don’t know, though.

lol i thought you tried, i heard it was a success with cats but dont know about squirrels.

I just don't have much confidence in a handful of toothpicks protecting something I could possibly invest years into. If there is a known squirrel problem really about the only two solutions are eradication and exclusion. It will only take squirrels a minute or two to completely trash a pot of flytraps or petunias and then they're gleefully on their way to other trivial pursuits. The plant owner is oblivious to the destruction that just took place and later merrily skips out to his plants that afternoon to see them plowed up, thrown out of the pot, roots drying in the sun, etc., as he frantically attempts to shove roots back into the growing medium while looking in horror at the tattered, broken plants. Toothpicks? They're excellent for picking one's teeth, poking into little pieces of cheese, checking cakes to see if they're done, holding ham and cheese wraps together as you heat them up, etc.,. But, to thwart a yellow-toothed rodent that can twelve feet from one prickly red oak branch to another one, that runs up and down tree trunks all down,...I dunno really how much protection they will offers. There's a lady on a gardening forum that constantly (for several years now) has "them crows" pulling up young vegetable seedlings in her garden. She uses toothpicks to "thwart" them. She constantly complains about "them crows". By now her entire garden must be covered with toothpicks and "them crows" are still raiding her seedlings.