Birds Eating Spring Bulbs

mayo.mick

This is the first time I've come across this, so forgive me if its been asked before. I'm a member of our local tidy towns committee. We built and planted a number of large planters last year and placed them at various sites around our town. Last autumn we set bulbs in each of them, dwarf daffodils and a mixture of crocuses.

We've noticed the last couple of weeks that the crocuses were being eaten. Only today I spotted on one planter that they had even started eating the daffodils that were growing. Has anyone seen this happen before? What could we plant next autumn in their place, snowdrops maybe?
http://swinfordtidytowns.com/new-box-planters/

Thanks for any advice.

Before:

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After the feed:

Marhay70

If it's the plants which are being eaten I would suspect slugs or snails, if it's the bulbs, mice.

Oldtree

I had a problem with birds, esp crows, pulling up new bulbs and used raised chicken wire (green) to protect them until they settled in. The birds didn't really eat the shoots. Get this with onions too soon as they shoot above ground.

Looks more like the shoots have been felled when slugs go at the shoots.

Marhay70

In fairness, my phone wouldn't open the link so I couldn't see what condition the plants were in but the OP did say the plants were being eaten, not uprooted, so I'll stick by my opinion.

mayo.mick

Marhay70 wrote: »

In fairness, my phone wouldn't open the link so I couldn't see what condition the plants were in but the OP did say the plants were being eaten, not uprooted, so I'll stick by my opinion.

Just to clarify, it looks like the shoots are being used to pull up the bulbs and the bulbs are being eaten. What's in the photos above is what's left. If I see another one pulled with the bulb half eaten I'll take a photo. It looks like beak from birds on what's left of the bulb.

lazybones32

same thing happened here; every morning the bulbs were pulled up from the soil and it never happened before. Thought someone with a grudge was lifting them but one of the lads saw the crows digging and pecking them.
Have no solution to offer since this is the first time I've seen it happen.

mayo.mick

lazybones32 wrote: »

same thing happened here; every morning the bulbs were pulled up from the soil and it never happened before. Thought someone with a grudge was lifting them but one of the lads saw the crows digging and pecking them.
Have no solution to offer since this is the first time I've seen it happen.

I think our solution is to replace them with something the birds wont eat! We couldn't be going around all the planter putting on netting and taking it off again, or anything like that. What we want is as near a maintance free as possible! Thanks for everyone input. I'm glad we're not the only ones having this problem (and I don't mean we're glad same thing happened you lazybones!).

baaba maal

Mice definitely ate my iris bulbs earlier in the year (before they started putting up shoots but not long after planting). If you were to plant up the tubs with bulbs in one year, and protected them for the first year, they wouldn't need looking after as I think they are only attracted to freshly planted bulbs.