Everyday Natural Products That Can Stop Wild Animals Invading Your Garden

Wild animals are great, when they stay out in the wild, but when they venture onto your property to scavenge they can cause all kinds of difficulties. Animals like skunks, possums and even wild birds coming to your garden can wreak havoc on your garden, turn over your garbage cans, and damage your home. If you have been experiencing issues with animals, then it is often possible to deter them in a safe, natural and animal friendly way, using inexpensive things you probably already have in your home. Guest author Jade Rose offers suggestions for everyday things you can use to keep wild animals away from your land:

Citrus Peelings

The peels of citrus fruits like limes, lemons and oranges have a potent acidic smell that a lot of animals hate. If you simply save up the peel from oranges, tangerines, lemons and grapefruit you eat at home and scatter them in your garden, this will often be enough to stop animals from wanting to come near. These things are also organic and biodegradable, so they will not harm your plants or make your garden look particularly unsightly. You should add new peelings every week or so to keep the effect going.

Ground Coffee

Another ordinary thing you are likely to have around the house that wild animals hate the smell of is coffee. Coffee grounds you can dump out of your French press or coffee machine after making your morning brew can be distributed around your garden and close to things like your garbage cans to deter creatures from coming close to them. This also works on cats and dogs, so if you have had problems with neighbors’ pets coming to use your garden as a toilet or to dig and be a general nuisance, coffee may be an easy solution!

Vinegar

Just like the acid smell of citrus fruits, the acid in vinegar can be very off putting to things like possums and skunks. Vinegar is cheap and easy to come by, and all you have to do is soak some old cloth or rags in it and put them in your garden, refreshing the vinegar every week or so, and you will have the benefits of it deterring pests.

While these methods all work very well in most cases, and you can of course use a combination of all of them to get even better results, if you are having a serious problem with wild animals coming onto your premises that can’t be rectified with these natural methods then it may be best to consult a pest control specialist. It may be possible to trap and relocate animals if you are not comfortable with measures that harm the creatures. If your problem is more with neighborhood pets, however, and things like orange peel don’t seem to be working, it may be necessary to talk to the owners of the animals and ask them to keep them inside or keep a closer eye on them, as obviously using things like traps or poisons isn’t an option with domestic animals.

This guest post is written by guest author Jade Rose; she is an employee at Peregrine, a mice control company in Alberta. She often indulges in blogging to share her views and opinions on various issues.

Images from Flickr.com used under the Creative Commons license. Image credits: Citrus Peelings, Coffee Cup, Vinegar.