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Squirrels are lively and entertaining garden visitors, racing along fences, climbing trees and performing impressive acrobatics to reach food. Most squirrels seen in gardens across England and Wales are grey squirrels, while native red squirrels are now much less widespread.
Gardens provide squirrels with plenty of opportunities for food and shelter, but they don’t always distinguish between what we’re happy to share and what we’d rather keep. Bulbs may be dug up, fruit sampled and bird feeders raided.
Living alongside squirrels is largely about finding a sensible balance. Understanding what attracts them and protecting vulnerable areas allows you to enjoy their visits while keeping damage to a minimum.
Squirrels have a varied diet and adapt readily to whatever food is available locally. Gardens can provide a particularly rich selection at different times of year.
Their natural diet includes:
🌰 Nuts & Seeds 🌱 Buds & Shoots 🍎 Fruits & Berries 🍄 Fungi 🌼 Flowers & Plants
They are also quick to discover food we’ve provided for other wildlife, particularly sunflower seeds, peanuts and other foods in bird feeders.
One of their most familiar habits is hiding food. Nuts and seeds are buried in the ground and retrieved when food becomes scarcer. Not every store is found again, so some buried seeds may eventually germinate.
A garden with mature trees, shrubs and hedges can provide squirrels with food, shelter and convenient routes between feeding areas.
Their climbing ability means they use gardens rather differently from much of our other wildlife. Trees, fences, pergolas, sheds and even washing lines can become part of a route across the garden.
You may notice more squirrel activity at particular times of year as different foods become available. Autumn is an especially busy period as squirrels collect and store food.
If squirrels regularly visit your garden, there is usually no need to do anything at all unless their activities are causing a particular problem.
Watching squirrels feeding can be enjoyable, and some gardeners choose to provide food for them. A dedicated squirrel feeder can also give them somewhere to investigate other than the bird feeders.
If you decide to feed squirrels, offer suitable foods such as unsalted nuts and seeds rather than processed or salted foods.
Keep feeding areas clean and avoid allowing large quantities of uneaten food to accumulate. As with feeding birds and other wildlife, good hygiene helps reduce the risk of food becoming spoiled or attracting unwanted visitors.
It is also worth remembering that putting out food is likely to encourage squirrels to return. If they are already causing significant damage to plants or crops, additional feeding may not be the best option for your garden.
👉 Expert Tip: If you feed both birds and squirrels, use separate feeding areas rather than relying on a single source of food. Positioning a squirrel feeder away from your bird feeding station may also make both easier to manage.
For many gardeners, the biggest challenge isn’t having squirrels in the garden. It’s stopping them from eating food intended for the birds.
Squirrels are remarkably agile and can reach feeders by climbing poles, travelling along branches or launching themselves from nearby fences and buildings.
If you’d prefer to keep bird food for the birds, consider:
Watch the squirrels for a while before deciding where to move a feeder. Their route to it may not be the one you expect.
👉 Expert Tip: Squirrels are excellent problem-solvers. If moving a bird feeder doesn’t work immediately, watch how they reach it before making your next adjustment. Removing one convenient launching point can make a surprising difference.
Most squirrel activity causes little harm, but occasionally their search for food brings them into conflict with the gardener.
Common signs include:
You don’t need to protect everything in anticipation. Concentrate on particular plants or areas if you discover that squirrels are repeatedly causing damage.
🌷 Bulbs
Protect newly planted bulbs with securely fixed wire mesh until shoots emerge.
🍓 Fruit & Veg
Use cloches or a properly constructed fruit cage where squirrels repeatedly take crops.
Squirrels spend much of their lives in trees, and most of their activity causes no difficulty for the gardener. Occasionally, however, grey squirrels strip bark from trunks and branches.
A small amount of damage may have little effect on a mature tree, but extensive bark stripping can weaken branches and, in severe cases, cause sections to die back.
If you notice fresh bark damage, keep an eye on the affected tree and assess how extensive it is rather than assuming that every mark needs treatment.
In most gardens, probably not.
If squirrels are simply passing through, burying the occasional nut or helping themselves to a little naturally available food, there is little reason to discourage them.
Where they repeatedly damage a particular crop, dig up bulbs or monopolise the bird feeders, protecting the affected area is usually a better approach than trying to make the entire garden squirrel-free.
Physical barriers tend to be more dependable than scents, noise-makers and other traditional deterrents, which squirrels may eventually learn to ignore.
The aim is simply to establish a few boundaries: this part of the garden is available to explore, while that particular pot of tulips is not.
Squirrels are intelligent, adaptable animals, and watching them can reveal just how well they understand and navigate their surroundings.
You may see them burying food, chasing one another through trees, balancing along surprisingly narrow branches or sitting upright to eat something held between their front paws.
A garden doesn’t have to be managed entirely for wildlife for animals to find a place within it. Allowing squirrels to visit while protecting the plants and feeding areas that matter to you can provide a good compromise.
Sharing a garden with wildlife sometimes means finding practical ways for plants, birds, squirrels and gardeners to coexist. A little targeted protection can often prevent the occasional nuisance without discouraging wildlife from visiting altogether.
We stock a range of bird feeders, wildlife feeding products, netting and plant protection products and can help you choose practical solutions for your garden.
Visit us in Kington. Enjoy the wildlife that visits your garden while finding simple ways to protect the plants, bulbs and crops you’d rather keep for yourself.
