I Finally Found a Way to Outsmart Gophers and Squirrels – These $30 Planting Baskets Are Keeping My Garden Safe

There's no feeling quite so disappointing as spending time and effort carefully planting bulbs only to find they never come up because gophers, squirrels, and other rodents have got to them. Well, I'm avoiding the heartache this year by using wire planting baskets to get my bulbs in the ground safely and with ease.

It's one of those inventions I didn't know I needed for planting bulbs until I stumbled across it. Take a look at these Amazon wire planting baskets – their design is simple and their benefits expansive. It's essentially a steel mesh basket that you can pop your bulbs into and plant. It then acts as a guard from destructive pests and also makes lifting bulbs at the end of the season easier.

These Amazon wire bulb planting baskets have a 4.4-star rating and customers say they 'absolutely do what they're intended to do' protecting from a wide range of pests, plus they're 'very sturdy and easy to use.' Thanks to these, I can finally can get my spring planting done without the uncertainty of whether they'll make it to blooming.

Why Use Wire Planting Baskets?

If you have a problem with gophers, moles, and squirrels digging up bulbs, tubers, rhizomes, and plant roots in your yard, a wire planting basket might just be the thing that saves your spring garden.

It acts as a physical barrier that stops these pests that dig and burrow getting the to the plants. At the same time, the wire structure doesn't restrict root growth and is flexible, so the plants can grow healthily.

A big bonus is if you have bulbs or tubers that need lifting, for example like overwintering dahlias, the basket is easy to pull up, reducing the risk of damage to the plants.

Why Shoppers Love These Baskets

On paper these wire planting baskets make sense, but I do wonder how effective they are in practice. Well, the reviews reveal just how good they've been at keeping plants of all kinds safe from destructive pests.

'These baskets are a game-changer for anyone dealing with gophers, moles, or voles in their garden,' one five-star reviewer writes.

'We have a 'herd' of gophers. They killed protea plants and roses before we discovered these gopher guards. Now we use these for any new plant [and] have not lost any plants to gophers [since],' another adds.

'Voles keep killing my plants, chewing them off at the roots, this protects the new ones going in,' another describes. 'This is the insurance for all my new plants,' they add.

In terms of how to use them, it appears these Amazon wire planting baskets are pretty straightforward:

'I found that filling the bottom of the basket with soil first, before putting it into the hole, helped the basket to keep its shape better. It made it easier to then place my plant and finish filling the basket,' one reviewer describes.

'Much easier than lining the entire garden with chicken wire to keep the pesky gophers from destroying all the hard work,' another shopper writes.

'The included gloves are a thoughtful addition, making it easy to handle the baskets without any hassle. The instructions were clear, and I had no trouble setting them up around my plants,' someone else adds.

One of the best parts of this deal is that you get 30 baskets to work with, in a mix four different sizes, so they really are versatile for a wide range of plants, including trees.

Even better, the current sale ($30.59, down from $33.99) works out at around $10 per basket – an absolute steal for tools that will protect plants all growing season and beyond.

'I’ve used them for everything from small flowers to larger shrubs, and they work brilliantly for all,' a happy customer writes.

As for durability, these wire planting baskets are made of stainless steel, making them rust-resistant and corrosion-proof. A strong guard against the most determined pests and staying in good condition when planted.

It's hard to find a downside to these when they work so effectively and are affordable.

Perhaps the only word of caution is the fact that more robust, woody plants (like trees and shrubs) may eventually experience 'root girdling' where roots grow into the wire and struggle to take up water and nutrients, causing stress to the plant.

But, this is easily avoidable by considering carefully which plants you use them for and finding more suitable natural pest control methods for others.

The best way to deal with pests in the yard is by using multiple methods. Our guides to getting rid of voles and getting rid of moles has more information.

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