Looking for a fun, fruity, and creative way to spruce up your garden and deter birds at the same time? 🌼 Look no further! This DIY Strawberry Garden Rocks project will add a pop of color, keep birds away from your plants and charm to your outdoor space, all while being eco-friendly and easy on your wallet! 🍓✨
Since I was a small child, one of my uncles has grown a massive garden each year including lots of very tasty strawberry plants; more specifically June bearing strawberries. If you’re like me, I could probably eat an entire bushel worth of those delicious berries by myself over the course of the season.
If you’ve ever grown strawberries though, you will know that birds love them as much as I do and for gardeners, that can be a major issue. After all, no one wants to lose their berries to pesky birds. Rock painting can be a simple way to help keep that from happening.
How Do I Stop Birds from Eating My Strawberries?
While you could buy garden netting for your strawberry patch, a very simple trick is this super easy craft. It’s so easy and so much fun that your kids will enjoy helping you create them too! By taking small rocks and turning them into painted strawberry rocks, you can trick birds into thinking they are real strawberries. Keeping your strawberries safe from prowling birds with fake strawberry garden rocks is such a fun way to manage your garden!
When the bird comes along and pecks at your little river rocks that look exactly like little strawberries, they realize they are not food. Later on when your strawberry bed is planted, they tend to leave them alone because they associate them with the rocks that were not food.
Do Strawberry Rocks Really Deter Birds?
The better question is are they going to deter every bird? No. Obviously you’re going to come across a smart bird every once in a while. However, the majority of them will figure out that those bright red rocks aren’t food and remember that fact.
Once they’ve learned it, they will move onto someone else’s strawberry crops.
When Should I Add Strawberry Garden Rocks to my Garden?
To get the best results out of your strawberry rocks, it’s best to place them as early in late spring or early summer as possible. At the very latest, you want them in the garden a minimum of two to three weeks before your berry plants start bearing fruit.
If they’re not out early enough in the season, the birds won’t have time to learn what you need them to learn.
How Do You Paint a Rock to Look Like a Strawberry?
To paint a rock to look like a strawberry, you’ll need a few different colors of acrylic paint. You’ll want red paint, yellow paint, apple green paint for leaves, and black paint. Since you paint the entire rock red, you will need more red than any other colors and you only put a tiny dab of black paint on each rock so you need less black than anything.
The best rocks are flat with a flat tip and made up of different shapes. In other words, the more they look like strawberries, wide at the top with a skinnier flat tip,the better.
Once you’ve got the proper rocks chosen, it’s just a matter of painting them to look like strawberries and adding to your garden. How fun, right?
DIY Strawberry Garden Rocks
Equipment
- 12 River Rocks, Wider on top or shaped like strawberries
Ingredients
Instructions
- Using the 1" brush, paint 3 coats of red paint allowing for drying time between each coat.Red Craft Paint
- Once the red paint has dried, use the angled brush to paint two coats of green on the top of each rock to simulate the strawberry cap. If desired, paint individual leaves down the front of each rock. Allow each coat to fully dry before adding another coat.Green Craft Paint
- Using the tip of the foam brush, dab yellow paint onto the red to simulate strawberry seeds. Allow to fully dry.Yellow Craft Paint
- On the top of each yellow dot, dab a tiny black dot. Allow to dry.Black Craft Paint
- Once fully dry, spray each rock with clear coat to protect from harsh weather.Krylon Spray Clear Glaze
- Add to your garden near your strawberry plants to act as a deterrent for birds that love strawberries.