Topic: Squirrels

[kayelondon]

The grey squirrels take everything from my garden - kiwi fruit, fejoa when the fruits have formed.  My garden is typical London so fenced all around.  As I would like to plant more fruit trees I am wondering about putting up barbed wire on the top of the fences - any thoughts?

[daitheplant]

Kaye, there is no way barbed wire will stop squirrels. You have Pineapple Guava fruiting in London? :o I am so jealous. :Plol

[kayelondon]

Hi, any other ideas to get rid of my squirrel problem then?  Fejoas should grow anywhere in the UK but...  I was living in Rome for a while and I bought a fejoa bush but some of them don't fruit so you need to make sure you buy one that already has some fruit on it (in other words, buy from a garden centre in about Oct/Nov so you know fruit are forming).  I haven't had any fruit ripen here but I would expect to if those bloody squirrels didn't get to them first!!!  I was trying to upload a photo of my garden but I couldnt' work out how! ???

[lottie lou]

Is there any way of netting your bushes off.  I think Shirlton made nifty bags to put over her fruit bushes out of net curtaining

[daitheplant]

Kaye I got mine from a garden centre, in fact I was the plant area MANAGER for the centre, The Feioja is doing quite nicely outside my front door, it flowers yet I don`t get any fruit. Perhaps south east Wales is a little too chilly, for it. ;D 8)

[kayelondon]

Hi, I will definitely net the trees off this year.  I will be going back to Rome soon and will take some cuttings off the tree that I had fruit from.  I had heard that you need 2 trees to get fruit on but that wasn't the case in Rome so I am unsure.  Read some of the NZ fejoa websites to be sure and I'll let you know if I bring some cuttings back - I can always send one on to you if it takes...

[Digeroo]

Have you tried tieing fleece bags over the fruit.   Squirrels are very clever and learn very fast.  I manage to cover whole branches of my cherry tree.

[Vinlander]

Kaye I got mine from a garden centre, in fact I was the plant area MANAGER for the centre, The Feioja is doing quite nicely outside my front door, it flowers yet I don`t get any fruit. Perhaps south east Wales is a little too chilly, for it. ;D 8)

Feijoas (Acca) are generally self-sterile so you need two plants that aren't clones to get fruit.

Unnamed plants in garden centres may be seedlings and are basically no good for anything except florists (actually that's untrue - the flower petals are delicious - exactly like marshmallow).

Even named plants may be self-sterile and aimed at big growers who want big fruit etc.

There are a few self-fertile varieties available mail-order (try Agroforestry.co.uk or readsnursery.co.uk - I have 'Unique' and 'Appollo' (sic) and they both do well every year here in London. Would do even better if they were close enough to pollinate each other, but they are fine anyway.

They like rich, well-drained soil so if you are on clay plant them in a 30cm mound and cover the mound with black plastic to keep the rain off and the moisture in.

Cheers.