Deer are what eat tulips at my house, but they do eat - no tricks about just nipping them off. Rats nip off hellebore flowers and cyclamen leaves and flowers in my greenhouse. They don't seem to do anything with them, as they remain lying beside the plant. A friend says her rats were storing her bitten-off hellebore flowers in one spot so she thought they were using them for nesting material. It seems that it is only potted plants in protected places that are attacked - the ones we were planning to put in a display or sell. The same plants in the garden aren't touched. Tulips are rather tall for rats, though I'm sure they could stand up on their hind legs to do it. Diane Whitehead