If you have ever waged war against the local squirrels to prevent them from ransacking your garden, you will know that they are wily beasts who can find loopholes in the most cunning of defences. Capable of remarkable feats of tightrope walking and problem-solving, they are formidable enemies indeed – and that's not to mention the many other pests who can torment the optimistic gardener, from slugs and snails to moles and deer and from bugs and weevils to fungus and blight ...
Anne Wareham has compiled a brisk, but comprehensive guide to recommended anti-pest strategems, including ingenious tricks to keep squirrels from eating all the seed when the feeders fail, and when to tie your sunflowers on to the shed roof. Always a realist, Anne is willing to admit that some pests simply can't be beaten and to advise when you should grow a different plant rather than prolonging the fight. And her range of garden foes extends beyond the natural world, with advice on how to resist fatuous horticultural trends and ignore 'people of unlike mind'. This is an honest, humorous book of advice which will be appreciated by amateur and professional gardeners alike.
The original edition of Outwitting Squirrels written by Bill Adler was published in the United States by Chicago Review Press in 1982. This is a new version inspired by the original edition.
Anne Wareham is a prolific garden writer for newspapers (including the Telegraph, Guardian and Spectator) and garden magazines (including the Garden). She edits the website ThinkinGarden, which has won a Garden Media Guild award and has a large following in the UK and abroad, receiving over 10 000 visits a month. Together with her husband, Charles Hawes, Anne spent over 25 years creating the inspirational garden at Veddw House in Monmouthshire – it has been featured on Alan Titchmarsh's Love Your Garden, and on Escape to the Country as well as on German and French television. She has appeared on television as a judge in the series Britain's Best Home and Garden on Channel 5 and was included in a list of the most influential British gardeners in the Telegraph, January 2012. Her previous book, The Bad-Tempered Gardener, was published by Frances Lincoln and has been called a 'best seller' by the Daily Mail. She describes herself 'a thorn in the flesh of the garden world'.