I am the puzzled terrace gardener who wrote late last june. Although I never caught them in the act, I suspect squirrels were eating my roses this summer and also my dahlias. I was somewhat successful in fending them off with the following combination of treatments which I repeated fairly often during the summer because each treatment wears off after a while. This is what I did. I sprayed with animal repellent. Trust me it is very bitter. If I were a critter I would not want to snack on this twice. Then I spread a generous amount of moth balls on top of the soil surrouding the bush pressing a little on each so it doesn't roll off. Then, taking a new moth ball and scracthing it a little, I rubbed this mothball on each new bud as it appeared and as it grew (even the very new and tender ones) to leave a moth ball powder deposit and repeated this last operation more often than the rest. Not just because it happens to be least trouble but it seemed to work. If I lapsed though, the squirrels came back.