Squirrels digging up the garden. Any suggestions??

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I've lived in this house for 5 years and, whilst we have trees in the garden, there are several trees around us (the garden backs onto a wooded area) and there have always been squirrels, we've never had this issue before.

In fact, I've never encountered it before in any garden!

It's daily now, the lawn is being dug up, bulbs in borders have been dug up, bulbs in pots have been dug up... the garden is a mess!

Has anyone tried a non harmful deterrent that has actually worked?

Thanks!

Chili flakes can be sprinkled to protect high value plants / areas in my experience. But not really practical for the whole garden. I think you have to accept a bit of nature 🤪

Unfortunately not the only thing that has stopped the squirrels from digging up my (and my neighbours) gardens was getting a Huskie (squirrels are there natural prey). Which is not really any use to you, I hope someone comes up with a less lethal way of dealing with them.
And before anyone asks no I didn't get a Huskie to deal with the squirrels it was a happy side effect and as far as I'm aware she's only killed and eaten 2 squirrels in the last 10 years but it's been enough to get rid of the nuisance (they were the invading grays not the native reds)

Pine martens? Grey squirrels are very slow compared to reds so are easy prey.

Air rifle.

Our squirrels dig up everything and anything in pots. The only deterrents that have worked is chicken wire mesh all around the soil bed with just the plant poking through. Quite ugly but puts them off and dense planting so they can't easily get at the soil .. I have thick grasses cloaely planted next to lavender which seems to work. The lavender without the grasses is just dug up

Or realise that your garden is also their home and they're just trying to survive.

Sonic repellent things that you can use to stop cats coming into the garden?? Or pepper sprinkled in the plant pots/on the garden.

We have used anti cat spikey plastic matting in all our pots and boxes which works pretty well. There's no stopping them on the lawn though, much as my husband shouting at them from the window amuses me.

Lion poo pellets (Silent Roar fertiliser) are worth a try, especially for the lawn.

We get it too. They are retrieving nuts that they buried last year.

It has got worse now that we don’t have a cat.

We just shoot them. As we back on to a forest there are always hundreds more waiting to take over the plot.

They ate so many of the wild birds eggs last year so we have to keep them under control.

Not only do they dig up my lawn but they have nicked all the hens egg sized cobbles from the edge of my path - and buried them in the garden, in pots etc etc. - yards and yards of stones - it's cost me a fortune.
I've tried chilli, I've had sonic scarers etc - made no difference whatsoever.
My house backs onto a wooded area too, which is lovely, but this is the "downside" - not helped by the fact that they look so damn cute while they're wrecking the joint (a bit like small kids!).

A terrier who finds it a personal abomination if a squizzer enters his garden and flings himself across the garden at full volume to chase the cheeky critter away. Get one that’s too noisy to actually catch the squizzer and no harm done!

They like to dig up bulbs. Best bet is normally
a cat or dog. Some have luck with chilli. Or like a pp air rifle.

If you catch a grey it’s illegal to release them.

Try a plastic owl, you have to move it around frequently.

A humane squirrel trap, developed in NZ to rid them of non native species. Perfect for non native grey squirrels in UK.

But then what do you do with it?

Legally, your only option is to kill it humanely. You can’t release it.

The trap kills it.

Foxes take it or we put it accross the road on the grass verge where the foxes come out of their den.

The foxes don't come in our garden much now after neighbours got dogs so we are happy with that and the squirrels got the message and numbers have significantly reduced!

Thanks for the suggestions! I know it's their home too but it's never been this bad or really happened at all before! I wondered if there was something that had changed from our end that was encouraging them.

I don't want to kill them, just deter them from digging quite so much!

Reading the cat/dog responses, I've realised that, since we've been here, we've had a few neighbourhood cats that have been frequent visitors to the garden but this year, we only have one who doesn't come as often. Maybe that's the reason.

Ill look into some pf the suggestions but it mainly seems we'll probably just have to live with it. Thanks.

Have a badger instead you’ll have no lawn just a bomb site

I live in France so my garden squirrels are red not grey but I love them. They bomb it in to collect some of the walnuts in the autumn and bomb it back to go stash them in the woods.

They don't come as much now that we have 8 semi ferals cats living mostly in the garden sadly. And last year was a bad one for walnuts so maybe they will be back this autumn. Of all the pests, squirrels are one of the least bad. We could have wild boar or deer coming from the woods here so I'll take squirrels any day of the week.