I planted around 40 bulbs last fall, and yesterday I was admiring the first of the tulips to open, a pink Mystic Van Eijk and two red and gold Banja Luka. Today, around 10 more of them are open, but 3 of them have been beheaded. Looking at them closely, the petals are on the ground, looking almost like intact blooms, and the stalks look like they were gnawed or snipped, less than an inch below the petals.
None of the daffodils were attacked, even the Golden Ducats with double petals whose heads were so heavy that they were bending over and touching the grass.
Any ideas on what critter could be doing this? Luckily, unlike @What_Exit’s experience linked below, it looks like 90% of my fall bulb plantings were undisturbed.
Have you ever seen deer in your yard? I learned last year that they absolutely love certain types of flowers, after a savage assault on my hostas. I’ve lived in the same house for about 25 years, and those hostas were planted before I bought the house. I’ve never had any blooms eaten until last year.
I have noticed that I see more deer than ever in my woods, and I also think they’re responsible for the weird divots in my lawn. I’m curious to see if they eat my lilies this year.
Our deer eat tulips (exactly as you describe) and leave daffodils alone.
Yes. Deer will eat them. Seen it happen. They don’t like Daffodils, I’ve found. YMMV
Clean out your hair brushes. Sprinkle the hair around.
Or, really gross…have a male* pee around them. Won’t take much. So don’t worry about smell.
If the deer are not neighbor pets and used to your scent. It might work.
Person*
Does this really work? Someone told me to do this to keep coyotes out of my yard.
OK, sorry, I forgot to describe where I live: Western Nassau County, NY. Our area is too built up for deer; I would consider it suburban, but real estate websites call it urban. I’ve seen deer around 10 miles away from here, where there’s more open space, but it’s highly unlikely that they’d cross miles of densely built-up houses to get to our block. By suburban standards our yard is tiny, 15’x30’. One reason people live here is that it’s easy to take the commuter train to NYC.
The wildlife I’ve seen on our block (where lots are 50’x100’) are feral cats, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons and an occasional possum.
Here’s a google maps satellite view which shows how built up the area is.
Google Maps
We have a truce with our deer. We feed them shelled corn and in exchange they leave our landscaping alone.
Apparently, rabbits love tulips.
Groundhogs will eat almost anything in the garden.