Who is the culprit?
LG_
Posts: 4,252
Who, or rather what, do you think is doing this? I lost loads of bulbs at the squirrel-digging stage, but once those that were left had grown and formed buds I thought they were safe. Not so. Something has been nipping the flowers off - I've lost about half of them. Grrrr.
Occasionally it's lower down the stem and I've been able to retrieve the abandoned piece to put in a vase (tulips mainly, but also erythroniums). Usually it's just below the flower, quite a neat cut, and sometimes I find it nearby, sometimes not.
^ Queen of the Night. Just one left.
^ Appledoorn. Group of - er - three.
^ Spring Green. Another group of 'three'.
I initially thought foxes (we have loads, and it's sort of head height for them). But could it be birds? Very persistent pigeons here, also magpies, jays and parakeets (not seen the latter land at all though).
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LGtheG last year i was blaming squirrels for taking the heads of antirrhinums, in a pot. Then I saw a field mouse take a head off at the stem then scuttle away with it.
I have lost some in the same way. Cleanly taken off quite high up. As we have a squirrel that is fond of camellia flowers and the occasional magnolia, I presume it is varying its salad.
The muntjac get blamed for everything here.
. But I love having them in residence
In the sticks near Peterborough
Same thing happened here in the lower part without a deer fence. There were deer footprints in the bed.
or rabbits.
just checking its not in a front garden? as it could be another wildlife type known as idiots
I lost almost all of my tulip flowers to deer and also the frest growth of my roases. Caught the deer on camera one morning!! This has been going on for the last 2 years!!
Definitely no deer here! Nor rabbits, to my knowledge. If the garden was easily accessible I would have thought it was someone with secateurs too, treehugger. But it's not.
I've been blaming the foxes but it seems more likely to be mice or squirrels. And given that the b****y squirrels caused untold damage to my bulbs before they even got to sprout, I guess it probably is them. At this stage I guess there's nothing I can do to prevent them? There's a couple nesting in one of our trees so I will expect further damage from their offspring.
Grrr again.